HV 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf ,.9.6.5" 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







^r^ 



^.&IBRARY^ 



A MAGAZINE OF STANDARD LITERATURE. 



PUBLISHED QUARTERLY. 

PRICE, $ 1 .00 PER YEAR. 



Hew €i^a (Company, - - I?ubijIShei^ 



§§M1 ilil! 

The Facts and the Arguments on the Liquor 
Traffic. 



Juat, iS®9« 



Price, 50 Cents 



Entered at the Post Office at Springfield, Ohio, as second-class matter. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FiSK , . Frontispiece. 

BENNETr Opposite Page 17. 



HELWIG... 
THOMPSON . 

COLVIN 

FINCH 

LEONARD . . 
ST. JOHN . . . 



81 
97 
129 
145 
161 
177 



CONTENTS. 

To the Law and Testimony 3 

The Bible and the Saloon 20 

Christ or Barabbas 33 

Tariff and Trusts 50 

The Rum Power. 69 

High License 95 

Abolition — Prohibition 118 

Regulation a Failure 149 

Cannot be Legalized Without Sin 165 

Who is Responsible? 168 

Party Platforms 172 

Saloons in Republican and Democratic States 180 

Supreme Court Decision 181 

The Old Parties 183 

Liquor and Labor 187 

The Prohibition Yote for Twenty Years 189 

Index. ........... 190 







CLINTON B. FISK, OF NEW JERSEY 



'solid shot. 



The Facts and the Arguments 



— ON THE • 



LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 



SPEECHES BY 

M. V. B. BENNETT, R. S. THOMPSON, WILBER COLYIN, REV. J. B. 

HELWIG, D.D., JOHN B. FINCH, JOHN P. ST. JOHN, 

AND REV. A. B. LEONARD, D.D., 

TOGETHER WITH STATISTICAL MATTER AND OTHER INFOR- 
MATION. 



>FC OA/ Gp . 



AUG 1 1889,,})/ 

18S9. 



The New Era Company, 
springfield, ohio. 






Copyrighted 1889, by The New Era Company. 



TO THE LAW AND TESTIMONY, 



THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOOD GOVERNMENT VIO- 
LATED BY TAX AND LICENSE LAWS. 



SPEECH BY M. V. B. BENNETT. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Let me read you two lines from this wonderful book. 
The politician never takes it with him"; it is never found 
in the political caucus of the old parties ; it is not present 
when the platforms are written ; they do not read from it 
and pray before they nominate the ticket. Why? It is 
the Bible, blessed book. It and the saloons do not agree. 
The saloon is in favor of whisky. The Democratic and 
Republican parties are in favor of whisky. The Bible is 
opposed to it. These parties are in favor of the saloon, or 
you would have none. But I read: u The law of the Lord 
is perfect, converting the soul ; the statutes of the Lord are 
right, rejoicing the heart.' 1 — Psalm xix:7-8. 

What unspeakable joy would come to this people, if the 
laws of Ohio even approximated perfection. Immeasurable 
happiness would light up every home in the grand old 
Buckeye State, were its statutes right. Who could picture 
the rejoicing? Who could describe the bliss, beaming in 
every face, gracing every brow, speaking from every 
tongue, flying from lip to lip, swelling into rising cadence, 
reaching the azure with the glad acclaim. All hail! 

It is the fault of the people, the voters, that our laws are 
not more perfect and our statutes right. If we approach 



4 Solid Shot. , 

perfection and imitate right, there would be no Dow law 
to disgrace legislation, nor apologists for this infamy, in 
the pulpit or out of it. 

Dr. Joseph Cook, in one of his lectures on biology, says: 
" Safe popular freedom consists of four things and can not 
be compounded out of any three of the four— the diffusion 
of liberty, the diffusion of intelligence, the diffusion of 
property, and the diffusion of conscientiousness." It is 
safe to adopt these four things as elements in our political 
organism as the measure of the perfection to which we 
have attained, and I assert without the fear of successful 
contradiction, that no form of civil government, based on 
the voice of the people, recorded in a fair ballot, can attain 
its true growth without these four great and indispensable 
elements being interwoven into its very woof and warp. 
Neither can successful civil government be maintained 
and conserve the peace by protecting inalienable rights, if 
either one of them is left out or neglected. We must have 
liberty under law, protecting right and prohibiting wrong; 
the widest diffusion of intelligence apprehending the rela- 
tion of the individual to the civil power and his duty as a 
unit thereof; the most liberal distribution of property, 
earned and accumulated under the Divine command, 
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," and a 
thoroughly grounded and expanding conscientiousness 
permeating every nook and corner of the body politic. 
Without these elemental principles as the governmental 
environment, all systems offering political civil liberty are 
mere shams. The duty of the statesman is to search our 
system, and where error has crept in eradicate it; where 
liberty has drooped, revive it; where property has 
accumulated under the demand of the highwayman, shake 
it loose from the unholy grasp ; where intelligence is 
slumbering, awaken it, and where conscientiousness is 
shackled, strike off the chains and give it the widest diffu- 
sion. Not only must conscientiousness be widely diffused, 



To the Law and Testimony. 5 

but unless it is the corner stone of the political fabric, the 
structure will be unsafe and short lived. 

The voice of the people in civil government is our boast, 
but an echo is seldom heard except when the State is 
shaken to its foundations by the startling err of the mob. 
Why|? Conscientiousness is stifled. Starvation homes 
and starvation wages abound where conscientiousness has 
ceased to rule. The brain that crowns a starving body 
can not reason ; brain and body know no law at starvation 
point, and the saloon lands all its faithful patrons here. 
The honest voice of the people can not be heard in a 
government so long as rings are formed and ruled by con- 
scienceless demagogues who caucus in saloons and whose 
only object is place and power; especially is this so where 
the means to attain which 'are neither weighed in the 
scales of justice or measured by the standard of right, but 
justified by the end sought and obtained. These steps 
lead down, not up. Had Governor St. John received the 
bribe, or appointed anyone else to do so for him, which 
Clarkson and ex-Governor Foster of Ohio, of the bribery 
committee appointed by the Eepublican party, was 
authorized to offer him, he would have been honored by 
that party forever; but because he would not sell, he is 
despised by them and burned in effigy, vilified and 
slandered, while the party honors the men who confessed 
their infamy and who glory in their shame. -Clarkson is 
made second assistant postmaster-general for his self-con- 
fessed willingness to bribe a candidate. 

When conscientiousness does not prevail, honor is dead. 
Every downward tendency in our lorm of government 
weakens the entire system. The strength of our govern- 
ment is in the chain of units, which is composed of men 
and women. The whole can not be stronger than the parts 
united. Liberty is for the whole. If the humblest citizen 
or unit is not under the broad aegis of liberty, protected 
just as fully as the highest subject, there is somewhere a 



6 Solid Shot. . 

wrong to be righted. No wrong should be permitted in a 
government like ours ; that is to say, no wrong should be 
permitted by and with the assent of the whole which 
injures or destroys the individual or unit, for such injures 
the whole. No man is purer than his worst habits or 
thoughts continued and entertained. Pure in all things 
in practice, but impure in thoughts entertained, is impure 
as a whole. To tell the truth six days of the week and lie 
the seventh makes only a liar. The good never atones lor 
the bad, or we would all go to heaven by a majority, just 
as the Republican party expects to arrive at prohibition. 
They claim in the North that a majority of the party is for 
prohibition ; but that claim has been somewhat unsettled 
by the test in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and has 
been knocked into a cocked hat in Pennsylvania and 
Rhode Island. The one lie takes the soul downwards, for 
the reason that the six truths are not strong enough to 
overcome or wipe out the one lie. There it stands and 
will stand forever. A lie enacted into law is stronger than 
all the professions and protestations of the party that 
enacted it. The Dow law is a lie, a saloon lie, and all the 
promises, professions and resolutions of the Republican 
party between now and doomsday that it is for prohibition 
can not wipe out that engrossed, enrolled statutory lie. 
There it stands. Repentance is the only method to over- 
come and wipe out that legalized lie and bring forth fruit 
meet for repentance. Wipe out the saloon and the lie is 
repented. 

Conscientiousness is not established by majorities. The 
majority in the Republican party may be strong enough 
to beat the Democracy, which it calls bad, but it contains 
a minority in its own organism as bad as the party it beats, 
and therefore is bad and will continue to be while the bad 
minority prevents it from doing right. Conscientiousness 
is not established by party. The victory of a party whose 
minority is as bad as the party over which it triumphs is 



To the -Law and Testimony. 7 

a principleless victory ; a contest between two evils, the 
least winning, is only a victory of evil. Such a victory 
caD not settle a moral question. Whenever the issue is a 
square one and is both a moral and political issue, the bad 
element will find its level on the side I hat opposes the 
settlement in favor of morals. The good element in a 
victorious party is never strong enough to eliminate the 
bad element when such elimination will defeat the party. 
Were this so the victorious party would immediately 
become the minority party and go to the wall. 

Power can not yield submissively to an antagonist by 
adopting his theory, if the adoption drives from it enough 
of its force to shear it of its power. Therefore a majority 
party would rather triumph upon a wrong than to accept 
and stand for a principle the adoption of which would 
drive from its fold such a minority as would culminate in 
defeat. There is a minority in both the Kepublican and 
Democratic parties that will never adopt prohibition. 
This minority would abandon the party and defeat it if it 
should adopt it. Therefore prohibition can not come 
through or from either the Republican or Democratic 
parties. They are dead to conscientiousness. They have 
refused to give us liberty under law, protecting the right 
and prohibiting the wrong. 

I have the right to the fullest liberty to raise my children 
under the protection of our government, and no man has 
the right to erect and maintain in front of my. home or 
adjoining it a dram-shop to which or in which my boys 
may be allured and made drunkards. No man has that 
right, never had, never can have it as a matter of right. 
The statement of the proposition is the proof of it. Man 
is a unit of the government. Any right a man does not 
possess individually he cannot get rightfully from a collec- 
tion of individuals. If the individual does not possess the 
right to open a den, a nuisance, a hell-hole in front of my 
home or by its side, a collection of individuals can not 



8 Solid Shot. 

rightfully do it ; neither can the one man nor the collection 
of men delegate a right they never had rightfully, to 
their agents, to do that which they could not right- 
fully do. Men can only delegate that which they possess. 
Having never possessed the right to open a dram-shop to 
debauch men, they can not delegate that right to others. 
Custom never lapses into a right. It has been the custom 
of some to steal, but it never became a right to do so, and 
men could not delegate the right nor the power to agents 
or representatives to license a man to do what he had no 
right to do. They might grant the license, but the rightful 
power to do so does not exist. I affirm, therefore, that the 
government of the . United States nor the States ever 
acquired the right or the rightful power to grant to any 
man or set of men the right or privilege, by taxation or 
license or by any other name, to open a dram shop for the 
sale of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes in front 
of my home or by the side of it, and all such grants, 
permits, license and taxation are unconstitutional. What 
do we mean by inalienable rights? Let us understand 
these terms and we may see our way more clearly. 

We are told by the framers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence that " men are endowed with certain inalienable 
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness." Civil government then is either instituted to 
preserve these or it is not. If not, the preservation de- 
volves on the individual, and experience demonstrates that 
the weaker would be shorn of their rights whenever the 
stronger concluded to deprive the weaker of these bless- 
ings. If civil government is organized to protect these, 
then any law or act of government that jeopardizes these 
is not in harmony with the purposes of civil government. 
Now to institute government to destroy that which it 
ought to preserve is to authorize a power to do that which 
you oppose. An inalienable right cannot be alienated, 
therefore it cannot be surrendered. Not a single natural 



To the Law and Testimony. 9 

or inalienable right has ever been surrendered by the peo- 
ple to our government. Said Thomas Jefferson : 

Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of 
their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natur- 
al rights and duties and take none of them from us. Xo man has a natural 
right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all 
from which the law ought to restrain him. Every man is under the natural 
duty of contributing to the necessities of society, and this is all the laws 
ought to enforce on him. 

Here is a clear enunciation of duty as well as right. We 
delegate the power to regulate and protect rights, not reg 
ulate and protect wrongs. Rights may be regulated ; 
wrongs must be prohibited. The liquor traffic for bever- 
age purposes is wrong, and must therefore be prohibited. 
I may forfeit my right to life and liberty, and it may be 
taken from me by the due process oi law which I have 
helped to provide by the surrender of power, but my right 
is never surrendered to the law-making power Life is 
dear to us as individuals and dear to the government of 
which we are members and integers. In fact there is no 
life in the government except as it exists in the units or 
integers. 

Now, anything that destroys, endangers, or renders life 
useless, helpless, or degrades it and renders it incapable of 
enjoying inalienable rights, life, liberty and happiness, is 
wrong. Government is instituted to preserve, not to de- 
stroy, these rights or to impair them. No right exists in 
government to destroy life except as punishment for crime. 
If it cannot destroy life itself, it cannot delegate this power 
rightfully to a business to destroy it. The power which 
permits such a destruction by any means is not a just 
power derived from the consent of the governed, but a 
usurpation and therefore unconstitutional. 

What is the rule of guide for our government ? Without 
a rule no government like ours, based on a " free ballot 
and fair count,*' is safe for a moment. You will answer 
me the constitution. In one sense this is correct. But the 



10 Solid Shot. . 

constitution is only a limit of power upon the law-makers r 
saying, " Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." You 
may protect and preserve, but you shall not take away or 
destroy. But there must be an additional rule — a rule of 
interpretation for the constitutional rule. Have we such a 
rule ? I answer yes, and it is found in the municipal rule 
of law, which our theory of government has adopted as 
the rule of interpretation not only for constitutions, 
but for all laws passed in pursuance of the fundamental 
law. What is this rule ? It is defined to be "' a rule of 
civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power of the 
State, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is 
wrong." This rule includes the four elemental principles 
with which I started out. It is fixed. It would not be a 
rule if its boundaries were not well defined The people 
delegated to the government all power of legislation falling 
within this rule. This is not a compact nor an agreement; 
it is authoritative. It is not an adjustable rule, like a 
Ke publican or Democratic platform. This rule was not 
made to catch votes or hoist any one into office, but solely 
and purely for the purpose of maintaining inalienable 
rights. It is the legal formula of the golden rule, " vVhat- 
soever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so 
unto them" Notice another thing : It is a rule of civil 
conduct. This conduct must be courteous, complacent^ 
gentle and obliging, well bred, affable, kind, implying 
some refinement of manners, opposed to rude, rough, 
coarse manners ; grave, sober, opposed to all criminal con- 
duct, occupations, trades or business that lead, teach or 
tend to criminal conduct. This rule is prescribed, laid 
down, marked out with metes and bounds. It is a guide 
board ; it points the way, the right way. If it pointed the 
wrong way it would be a violation of the rule, for the 
wrong way is not a rule of civil conduct. Is the saloon a 
rule of civil conduct, or a rule of gross, sensual, coarse, 
uncivil, rude rough, criminal conduct? Answer, answer 



To the Law and Testimony. 11 

on your knees, Christian men and women, and I am 
content. 

By whom is this rule prescribed ? The supreme power 
of the State ? How ? By commanding what is right and 
prohibiting what is wrong. Not by permitting the wrong. 
It would not be a rule were it to permit what it must pro 
hibit. There is no option in this rule like a local option 
law.* |The supreme power must prohibit the wrong and 
must command the right. To command a saloon into 
existence under a license law is not commanding the right. 
To prohibit all saloons, except those that come into exist 
ence under the Dow law, or the Harper law, or the Crosby 
high license bill, is not prohibiting the wrong. These laws 
say prohibit the wrong unless a man pays for it. All 
statutes which regulate, tax, or license, the liquor traffic 
are pretenses to protect morals. The Supreme Court of 
the United States in the Kansas case says : 

If, therefore, a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the 
public health, the public morals or the public safety has no real or sub- 
stantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion of right secured 
by the fundamental law, it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and 
thereby give effect to the constitution. 

All license and tax laws that permit the liquor traffic for 
beverage purposes have no real or substantial relation to 
public health, public morals and public safety, and they are 
therefore unconstitutional. 

To enforce and apply the rule of interprets ion which I 
maintain, there must be liberty and protection under law, 
prohibiting wrong, and a freedom to raise the children of 
the State without let or hindrance from the dram shop 
There must be an intelligence broad and deep that carries 
to every mind the conviction that alcoholic beverages 
destroy men, governments and immortal souls ; there must 
be a liberal distribution of honestly acquired property to 
sustain both people and law makers, and under all and 
above all and around all, diffused in all a conscientiousness 



J 2 Solid Shot. 

that leads men and government to command what is right 
and prohibit what is wrong. 

The law making power in the hands of any party should 
be wrested from it the moment it fails to come up to this 
test rule. Any administration, be it Democratic or Repub- 
lican, is a base and cowardly one that fails to prohibit the 
dram shop. The legislature that compromises with the 
liquor crime by licensing or taxing it is particeps criminis 
before and after the fact. Local option is local infamy left 
to the choice of the community. It says as representatives 
" we are too cowardly to do right, so we will let you people 
do right or wrong as you please.'' The same court in the 
Kansas case says : 

We can not shut out of view the fact, within the knowledge of 
all, that the public health, the public morals and the public safety may be 
endangered by the general use of intoxicating drinks; nor the fact, estab- 
lished by statistics accessible to every one, that idleness, disorder, pauper- 
ism, and crime existing in the country are, in some degree at least, 
traceable to this evil. 

When a State enacts a local option law it says if a 
majority in any locality is for the saloon, they may do 
wrong and destroy public health, public morals and public 
safety. Taxation or license is governmental toleration of 
wrong. High license is high guilt made respectable by 
legislation, and the advice of wine drinking clergymen. 
The devil's best agents on earth are high licensed preachers 
who, to save a party, would damn a soul by license and 
taxation. I want to be just to all high license and taxation 
advocates whether parading in sacerdotal robes or standing 
in public places commanding the hosts of heaven and all 
earth to listen while they pray. I know these fellows. 
Christ called them in his day whited sepulchers, and he 
named them for all time. The devil would rather have 
one preacher like Howard Crosby or Ernest H. Crosby to 
say in the pulpit, " I am as good a judge of sin as you are, 
and for me it is no sin to drink a glass of wine if I feel 
disposed ; or if a young man wants to drink a bottle of 



To the Law and Testimony. 13 

wine with his beef steak he has the right if he is able to 
pay for it," or a man like Warner Miller to preach through 
New York that high license is a step towards temperance, 
than to have all the slums out of hell in the saloons cheer- 
ing for high license. The devil prefers respectability as a 
bait. You will see the pic ure of these men in every 
doggery, in every gambling hell, in every brothel. The 
gamblers cry out " These are the preachers and leaders of 
men ;" the saloons yell in your face, "Crosby Presbyterian- 
ism is good enough religion for me ;,' the harlots cry, 
" Give me Warner Miller's Methodism and high license as 
a saving grace ; there is no fanaticism there.' 1 

God will hold all Christian men responsible for every 
vote cast that upholds or perpetuates the legalized crime 
of putting the bottle to our neighbor s lips. You cannot 
pray over this matter and preach about it and then walk 
to the polls and vote either the Democratic or .Republican 
ticket and, like Pilate, wash your hands and exclaim, " I 
am innocent of this man's blood." He was guilty. So are 
you. The law makes no man moral, but it should make 
scoundrels quit or pay the penalty. Every preacher that 
sticks to either of the old parties because he is afraid the 
other will get in, is like the Scotch lad whose mother 
educated him for a preacher. He came home and she 
asked him to pray. He prayed loud and well. When he 
arose he said : " Mither, how do ye lack that ?" "Ah, my 
boy, ye did na gie the de'il a whack." " That's so, mither ; 
but we can na tell whose hands we'll fall into." 

I pity the preacher who on Sunday preaches the love of 
Christ and on Tuesday votes the love of the saloon. God 
help these professed followers of Jesus to ask themselves 
on their knees how Christ would vote on this question, and 
then have nerve enough to vote right or manhood enough 
to hide. 

But, my friends, I have given you the municipal rule 
Here is the constitution: 



14 Solid Shot. 

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect 
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the com- 
mon defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this consti- 
tution for the United States of America. 

The purposes of this constitution are clearly set forth. 
We can all understand it. Does the establishment of the 
drink traffic bring about a more perfect union ? Does the 
saloon aid in establishing justice; or insure domestic 
tranquility ? Can it help provide for the common defense 
or promote the general welfare? How can it secure the 
blessings of liberty while it is constantly forging the chains 
of appetite and slavery of drunkenness? Can the dram- 
shop contribute to any of the purposes for which govern- 
ment was formed? If not, will you tell me under what 
clause of the fundamental law of the land legislative 
power is authorized to establish the saloon ? The whole 
tenor of our government and trend of legal safeguards are 
against that business that lowers the standard of morals. 
The saloon debauches all who patronize it, and in the 
wide-spread evil the units of government become degraded, 
corrupted, conscienceless vagabonds, and thereby weaken 
the union for which government was formed to protect. 
The tranquility is disturbed when men are rendered unfit 
to trust with the cares of government, and drunkenness 
unfits a man for everything but crime. The public welfare 
requires soberness, purity, clean brains and stout brawn, 
neither of which is supplied by the saloon. The saloon, 
being bad in itself, bad in its effects on public health, 
public morals and public safety, the bad is a wrong which 
government was organized to prohibit. All taxation or 
license of a wrong, therefore, is a limit on the power of the 
State to the prejudice of the public health and public 
morals, and the Supreme Court says: 

The state could not by any contract limit the exercise of her power to 
the prejudice of the public health and the public morals. * * * No 
legislature can bargain away the public health or the public morals. The 



To the Law and Testimony. 15 

people themselves cau not do it, much less their servants. * * . * The 
government is organized with a view to their preservation, and can not 
divest itself of the power to provide for them. 

Now if government is organized for the preservation 
and protection of the public health and public morals, and 
if " it cannot divest itself of the power to protect them," 
how can it authorize the drink traffic, which is destructive 
of both, to be carried on for a tax or under a license ? This 
is doing indirectly what the Supreme Court says can not 
be done directly. Now I come to the first proposition : 
No true growth without liberty, intelligence, property and 
conscientiousness. Concientiousness and the saloon can 
not exist together in the same governmental cell. One or 
the other must go. Is our system of government opposed 
to the saloon ? And if so, why ? Because the saloon is 
opposed to a perfect union, domestic tranquility, common 
defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty, 
and is therefore unconstitutional. 

The saloon is labor" s greatest foe and greed's greatest 
waste. The two hundred thousand saloons open opportu- 
nities for property earned in the sweat of the face to be 
squandered. Here hell holes offer a means for the widest 
waste of property, but it all goes to the biggest gambler 
at last and the masses suffer. Every saloon has its 
gambling hell near by, if not in the back room or up stairs. 
The most expert gambler gets all the property wasted in 
the saloon. This gambler goes with his ill gotten and 
stolen pelf to the larger cities and to the larger gambling 
hells and there again it is the big eating the little fish. 
Cards and faro are not large enough and stock, schemes 
and corners, rail roads and trusts, public lands and pub- 
lic plunder all pass into the hands of the syndicates, 
and iron pounders, switchmen, engineers and Knights of 
Labor strike, while communism and anarchy a little further 
on kill and slay and clamor for a division of the world "s 
accumulated wealth. 



16 Solid Shot. 

The remedy is not in strikes, or divisions. Labor 
demands higher wages and if not heeded stops the wheels 
of progress and both old parties grab at the situation to 
make political capital while the saloon pours its poison 
down the throats of the laborers and cries, " Stand out for 
your rights." This thief robs labor not only of its money, 
but of its manhood. Let us stamp the traffic from the face 
of the earth. 

Last year the issue was the tariff. This year all eyes are 
turned toward the saloon. The Times Star, of Cincinnati, 
Republican, in its issue the first of this month says: 

Public attention is now turned to the saloon question. There is in Ohio 
the same drift of opinion that has led other great States to enact high 
license laws. No State in the Union ever had stronger reason for taking 
decisive action, upon a practical line, with reference to the liquor traffic, 
than that which moves the people of Ohio to call for high taxation and 
rigid restriction. 

What's the matter with the Dow law? I got the idea 
that it was the eternal principles of the Republican party. 
But listen as I read : 

The Dow tax has a good effect in reducing somewhat the number of 
saloons, but in another direction its effect, in this city at least, has not 
been beneficial. It has tended to increase the arrogance of the beer-saloon 
element in trampling on all laws the observance of which would reduce 
their profits. They have been able to do this and to defend themselves in 
their lawlessness, by combining and making the power of the combination 
felt in politics. 

Have not Prohibitionists been trying to beat this truth 
into the heads of the people for the last ten years, and have 
they not been denounced for it and called hard names? 
Nothing brings conviction like waning political power. 
The saloon knows no politics, no party, no Sunday, no 
God ; beer, boodle, and brutality is its trinity. But the 
Republican Times-Star says more: 

They have rebelled against the most moderate regulations [of course 
they have], outraged public decency, corrupted political conventions 
[didn't we tell you so ?], debauched juries and the sub-judiciary, and openly 
defied the laws of the State. 





M. V. B. BENNETT, OF KANSAS. 



To the Law and Testimony. 17 

This is a delightful wail for an advocate of restriction 
through legislation. The Times- Star proceeds to say: 

The saloon business in Ohio, and especially in Cincinnati, is a swollen 
and a monstrous evil. It should be .firmly taken in hand with an earnest 
purpose to apply a remedy. 

That is so, and the Prohibition party is the only one that 
can grasp this evil with a firm hand ; and it intends to do 
it and save the country. Anarchy dies at a well-fed table. 
Nihilism well fed is well bred. The remedy is no saloon, 
no "swollen, monstrous evil"; no saloon, "no rebellion 
against the most moderate regulation." " You can't regu 
late an irregularity." No saloon, no strike ; no saloon, no 
anarchy. No saloon, higher wages, or wages saved, and 
" no combination felt in politics." No saloon, no com- 
munism. Anarchy and communism can only flourish and 
thrive when watered by the saloon. .Strike down the 
saloon and you strike down the strikes. 

If the one billion of capital wasted in the drink traffic 
was injected into the arteries of trade there would not 
be a shoeless foot or supperless tramp in the land in a 
fortnight. Strike down the saloon and the six hundred 
thousand drunkards at work in one week would require 
four million loaves of bread, thus taxing the mills to their 
utmost capacity. Strike down the saloons and the six 
hundred thousand drunkards sober would take home three 
pairs of shoes to children that have not known the luxury 
of shoes for years, and the tan-yards would bulge with 
new hides, and the lap-stones and hammers of the shoe- 
makers would ring out such music as has not gladdened the 
ears since the morning stars sang together. Strike down 
the saloon, and glad-hearted children with the new blush 
come again to pinched cheeks, would blossom with 
health and ringing voices that would end in a melody that 
morning stars can never make. Strike down the saloon, 
and no tramp will be heard in the land save the 
tramp that keeps step to the hum of industry and the 



18 Solid Shot. 

glory of a universal sobriety. Strike down the saloon, 
and Sabbath danse halls will close, Sabbath horse-racing 
will cease, and the sanctity of the Sabbath will be pre- 
served. Strike down the saloon, and broken hearted wives 
and mothers will fall upon their knees, and to the throne 
of Jehovah will go up a prayer of thanksgiving that would 
shake the New Jerusalem with a joy as never before since 
the Son of Man burst the cerements of the grave and 
seated himself as the Prince of princes and Judge of the 
quick and the dead. 

There is only one party that proposes to do something 
for every man, woman and child, black and white, rich and 
poor, native and loreign born on our shores, and that 
is the Prohibition party. It proposes to make all better 
by destroying that which makes all worse; by making the 
poor richer, and the rich safer, and all happier. 

I appeal to Christians — it is your boys we would save; 
I appeal to Democrats — it is your homes we would protect ; 
I appeal to Republicans — it is your record we would pre- 
serve ; I appeal to ministers — it is your churches we would 
crowd ; I appeal to the poor — it is your cupboards we would 
fill ; I appeal to the wretched and lost — it is your souls we 
would save ; I appeal to the rich — it is your treasure we 
would make safe ; I appeal to the laboring man — it is your 
industry we would reward ; I appeal to the colored man — 
it is your rights we would secure ; I appeal to the mother- 
hood for your prayers to God in behalf of a true manhood 
and common brotherhood, that we may have laws that are 
perfect, saving the boys ; that we may have statutes that 
are right, rejoicing the homes of the land. Come and go 
with us; we want men, manly men, honest men. Oh for 
honest men — God's noblest work. 

Bel Arden one day gave out through his realm, 

That a thousand shekels and a jeweled dirk 
Should be his who the best answer gave to this: 
" Which of all is Allah's noblest work?" 
So the wise magicians, and learned ones all; 



To the Law and Testimony. 19 

The necromancers and alchemists, 

The grave philosophers, hermits gray, 

And sages worthy, a goodly list, — 

Studied and pondered the question long, 

Weighed and balanced the subject well; 
Consulted nature, science, his craft, 

And aught to inform in his way that fell. 
Three days and nights they sleepless spent, 

Then on the all important day 
Before Bel Arden they each appeared, 

A learned profession in grave array ! 

First spake a scientist bent with age — 

But his dim eye kindled into a glow : 
' Of Allah's works, this beautiful earth 

Is by far the noblest of all we know, 
With its isles and continents clothed in green, 

Which ever old ocean's arms enfold, 
And its geologic record writ 

In the solid rocks that are aeons old." 

Said a wise astronomer: "What the work 

More grand and noble in Allah's plan 
Than the stars, the skill of his handicraft; 

The sun, the moon, whose cycles we span. 
Or Orion leading his glittering host, 

The Pleiades set mid the bright array, 
Venus, the torch of the heavenly throng, 

Or the star-paved road of the milky-way?" 

He ceased, and each in turn set forth 

The noblest work in his mental view, 
Till the day was well nigh spent, and still 

Greater and grander the subject grew; 
When at last a white-haired hermit rose — 

His form was bowed and his features wan : 
;i Of all created things," he said, 
" God's noblest work is an honest man!" 

■' Thou hast well said," Bel Arden cried; 
• ; Father, the gold and the weapon thine, 
For the earth shall fail, and the stars shall fall, 

The sun and moon shall cease to shine; 
The wisdom of morals come to naught, 

Forgotten the crown, and the sceptered rod ; 
But truth and virtue shall live for aye— 

An honest man's akin to God!" 



20 Solid Shot. 



THE BIBLE AND THE SALOON, 



THE PRINCIPLE OF REGULATING VICE UNSCRIPTURAL. 



SPEECH BY M. V. B. BENNETT. 



Mr. President, my Fair Country-women and Men : 

When God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden and 
commanded him, saying, u Of every tree of the garden 
thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of 
good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,'' prohibition com 
menced t;hen and there, and is therefore as old as Adam. 

The devil was the first enemy of prohibition and is so 
now. There were only two parties in Eden when Satan 
made his personal liberty speech to Eve. The devil then 
commenced on the stronger party in Eden, knowing that 
the weaker would more readily succumb. Hence his subtle 
argument against God's prohibitory law was made to Eve. 

So did the devil of the liquor traffic commence his 
argument with the Republican party twenty-five years ago. 
He knew, if he could get the Republican party committed 
to the saloon, that the poor old Democratic party, which 
for the last twenty five years has been camping the day 
after where the Republican party camped the day before, 
would fall into line and stand by the dram-shop. 

The devil said to Eve, " Ye shall not die. For God doth 
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall 
be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." 
Eve took the apple and did eat and tossed one to Adam 
and he bit it to the core, and the two old parties were 
opposed to prohibition and both dodged the Lord there 
just as both the old parties dodge prohibition now. 



The Bible and the Saloon. 21 

God turned both of the old parties out of the garden 
and put it under the guard of a cherubim. We intend to 
turn both the old parties out and guard the heritage our- 
selves with the flaming sword of Prohibition. 

The liquor traffic devil went to Washington when the 
war commenced, and said, " Ye have heard it said when a 
nation becomes dissipated it shall die." " Yes," said the 
old party, " a people who forget God shall be turned into 
outer darkness, and the beverage brewed of hell makes a 
people forget God." "Give me a revenue law," said the 
liquor devil, and partake of my fruit and ye shall not die, 
but become wise, strong and rich. I will pour taxes from 
my traffic into your coffers, and pay your debts, your 
soldiers their pensions, and help to furnish your accoutre- 
ments of war, and ye shall live and wax strong," and the 
Republican party did eat and tossed an apple to the Dem- 
ocratic party, and it has been yelling " No sumptuary 
laws " ever since. 

Whenever the Republican party takes a drink the Dem 
ocracy hiccoughs and staggers. " Now," said this devil, 
u is the time to repeal the prohibitory laws passed by the 
Democracy. You pass the repealing statutes and I'll keep 
the Democracy drenched with tangle-leg and it will hic- 
cough 'I too,"' and every prohibitory law was repealed 
in every State except Maine — and no protest from the 
Democracy. It went back on its prohibition record, and 
now the poor old Democracy goes roaring around, "We 
are for personal liberty.'* The devil has always been 
roaring that. 

The Republican party enacted the revenue laws and said, 
pay twenty-five dollars and you may start a saloon. It 
made a partnership between the government and the drunk- 
ard-maker, and the government gets ninety cents out of 
every gallon of liquor manufactured. This is the lion's 
share. When whisky is one dollar and twenty-five cents 
a gallon Uncle Sam gets ninety cents, and the murderer 



22 Solid Shot. 

thirty-five cents a gallon. The first law taxed whisky 
twenty cents a gallon; afterwards it was raised to fifty 
cents a gallon. At this time John Sherman was elected 
to congress. He did not have as much of this world's 
goods then as now; but he had a conference atPut-in-Bay 
Island, and by a strange freak the distillers were at 
Putin-Bay at the same time. Immediately every still- 
house doubled its fires and the worms of the stills shot out 
whisky like a well regulated hose at a first-class fire. The 
tax was raised from fifty cents to one dollar and fifty cents. 
Sherman's hand was in the raise. The speculator who 
bought whisky that paid the fifty cents tax would and did 
make one dollar clear on every gallon on hand, and one 
dollar and fifty cents for that held to a certain time to be 
named in the future. If Sherman bought under this 
manipulation it is certain he lost nothing by the invest- 
ment. The Kepublican party from that day to this has 
upheld the liquor traffic and saddled on the people two 
hundred and fifteen thousand saloons and is therefore a 
saloon party just as much as is the Democracy. 

Now let us follow Mr. Senator John Sherman. Ohio 
passed the Pond bill. It was a tax bill. The Supreme 
Court said it was unconstitutional. This same Senator 
Sherman on the 31st day of August, 1882, said: 

The legislature cannot grant a license to traffic in intoxicating drinks 
in this State. The Pond hill was an abortive effort to tax the business. 
The Supreme Court holds that the tax imposed was in effect a license, and 
therefore the law was unconstitutional and void. I doubt very much 
whether any efficient tax law can be passed that will not be subject to the 
same objection. I cannot see how you can have a tax law without its 
operating as a license law. A license is a permit by legal grant; it is tax 
on a trade or occupation, but implies a permission to follow that trade or 
occupation. We do not tax a crime. We prohibit and punish it. We do 
not share in the profits of a larceny, but by a tax we do share in the profits 
of selling, and therefore allow and license it. 

Such is the language of Senator Sherman. The United 
States taxes the liquor traffic ; we therefore share in the 



The Bible and the Saloon. 23 

profit. We are partners in this infamous business, so says 
the man who helped to tax the liquor traffic in the National 
Congress. 

But let us follow the Senator a little further. In 1883 
the Scott law was passed and was heralded forth as a 
Republican measure. On the 6th da/ -of June, 1883, Sen- 
ator Sherman was chairman of the Republican convention 
at Columbus, and he said: 

This traffic goes on by day and by night, filling our poor-houses, jails 
and penitentiaries, increasing the expense of our courts and police. Now 
the question is this, Ought not the traffic to be taxed to pay a portion of these 
expenses ? This is the principle of the Scott bill. It is right. Our State 
constitution prohibits a license, but this is not a license, it is a tax. 

Here is Sherman on both sides of this question within a 
year. If I were to write under a snake, " This is not a 
snake, it is a fish," would it be a fish? If the liquor traffic 
ought to pay a portion of the expenses it makes, why not 
tax it and make it pay all the expenses it makes? Will 
you tell me why not? But if the Scott law or the Dow 
law is a tax law, and the traffic is filling our jails and 
penitentiaries, and if by a tax law we do share in the profit 
of selling and therefore allow and license this criminal 
business, the party that does this is in partnership with 
the liquor traffic and is not and can not be a prohibition 
party, let alone a temperance party. It is the devil's 
party. A man who shares the profits of a highwayman is 
a robber just as much as the man who points the pistol to 
your heart and says, " Stand and deliver." The Republican 
party shares the profits of selling in Ohio. John Sherman 
says so. 

My Christian friends, what do you think of it ? Can 
you as true Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, 
Baptists, Christians, support a party that shares the profits 
of liquor selling for beverage purposes? Can you endorse 
by your votes this damnable business that Senator Sherman 
says is going on by day and night filling our poor houses, 



24 Solid Shot. . 

jails and penitentiaries? Can you? Do you think God 
wants you to endorse such a business? Do you think the 
blessed Savior wants you to vote with a party that shares 
the profits of a business that is making criminals ? Would 
he, if on earth, vote with such a party ? And ought we to 
do what Christ would not do ? This is a serious question 
to you and me, brother. How shall we answer it? Don't 
you see the finger, yea, the cloven foot of the devil in the 
liquor trafiic ? The devil would vote for it, and share the 
profits. Can we as Christians ? 

God convinced Sherman in 1882 that a tax law could not 
be passed without operating as a license law, but in one 
year after the old devil comes to him, like he did to Eve. 
and says, " Senator, a tax law is not a license law. Get 
up and tell the convention so or you will lose the postoflices 
and the g. o. p. will be smashed into smithereens,'* and up 
bobbed the poor old political weather cock and said: 
" This terrible business goes on by day and by night filling 
poor houses, jails and penitentiaries, increasing our ex- 
penses ; now let us tax it and make it help to pay a portion 
of the expenses which it produces, and we will let it goon 
by day and by night, filling our jails and penitentiaries, it 
it pays for it. It is not a license ; it is a tax.' Is not the 
man whom the trafiic sends to the penitentiary just as 
much a felon, whether the trafiic is taxed or not? Does 
the fact that you tax the trafiic and share in the profits of 
selling make the felon a more respectable scoundrel than 
he would have been had you not taxed it? Is it possible 
that Christian men can swallow such duplicity, such 
trickery? But wait a moment. The Republican party 
passed the Dow law, because the Supreme Court said the 
Scott law was in effect a license law, and in its last con- 
vention at Toledo it endorsed John Sherman for President 
— a fit commendation. A convention that pointed with 
just pride to the Dow law (another tax law) as the fulfill- 
ment of all Republican promises to the people of Ohio 



The Bible and the Saloon. 25 

on the temperance question was certainly consistent in 
recommending for the presidency a man who is in favor 
of maintaining a partnership between the government 
and the manufactories of criminals for our jails and 
penitentiaries. This same convention nominated J. B. 
Foraker for governor, who says that taxation and regulation 
of the liquor traffic are the eternal principles of the 
Republican party. The Dow law is a tax law. Foraker 
and Sherman both say, and so did the convention that 
nominated one and endorsed the other, this business goes 
on under the Dow law, by day and by night, making 
thieves and felons for our jails and penitentiaries. Now 
we will continue this infamous business that makes 
murderers, but we will make them pay taxes for the 
privilege of running their murder shops, and they added, 
u We point with pride to a law that legalizes theft, arson, 
robbery and murder," and Christian men are asked to vote 
and approve such a policy and keep such men in place and 
power. Can a man love God and a law that allows places 
to be opened in which criminals are made for the peniten- 
tiary? Can he? I a<k you, Christians, can you love God 
and the saloon? The Dow law is a saloon law. If you 
cannot, tell me how you can vote for men and with a 
party that point with pride to a law that permits the traffic 
that fills jails and penitentiaries. Answer this on your 
knees to God. You will have to answer some day, and 
you had better begin now. God pity the Christianity that 
can vote for men who admit the evil of the liquor traffic 
and then boast that they have passed a law to perpetuate it. 
Let us ring the bells of heaven and call up the workers 
in God's vineyards and ask a question or two. Do you 
think the ministers ought to practice what they preach? 
Now I am no preacher. I never read a book on theology 
in my life. I am a plain outspoken Methodist, and I am 
proud of it. Let us think before we answer. God's word 
is for earth, for every-day practice, for all conditions of 



26 Solid Shot. 

life, for government, for the ballot box as much as the 
church. Let us start the bells, Prohibition bells as well 
as the bells of Heaven : " Whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any 
praise, think on these things." Brethren, do you think 
that there can be any such a thing as true politics, and of 
good report? If you think politics is dishonest, why are 
you thinking on such and voting with such? Webster says 
politics is the science of government. Ought not the 
science of government be true, just, pure, lovely and of 
good report? Is the saloon in the politics of this country? 
Is it true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report? 
You preachers preach from this text, " Whatsoever things 
are true,'' etc. My brother, when you take these words 
from God s holy book and tell your congregation to think 
on these things, do you tell them that as good Christians 
they cannot vote for a policy that is not true, just, pure, 
lovely and of good report? Do you? Do you? Hadn't 
you better commence a course of sermons on this subject? 
Can these license laws that allow any man who can raise 
two hundred or five hundred or a thousand dollars, to start 
a saloon and damn the boys and men, be true, just, honest, 
pure, lovely and of good report? Answer like Christians, 
loving God more than party. God wants you 10 speak, 
and to speak at the ballot box. How can you go to the 
polls and say by your ballot, " I know the saloon is wrong, 
against God's word, against the best interests of God's 
church, and the home, but I prefer to stick to the old 
party. It is true I profess to be a Christian, but I am a 
Republican or a Democrat first and a Christian afterward. 
I'll vote for the devil if my party says so rather than for 
God in a new party. The Bible is all right for Sunday, 
but I must stand by my party on election day." My brother, 
you have a right to be a Republican or Democrat, provided 



The Bible and the Saloon. 27 

those parties are right, but not otherwise, at least if you 
are a Christian. It is the Christian that I am after. I care 
nothing for the slums. I expect these to stick to party, 
right or wrong, but Christians cannot afford to pursue such 
ways. I have heard Christians denounce the circus, theater, 
opera, race track and gambling table. I agree with them 
that these places are wrong. Hence I do not visit them. 
I have heard Christians criticise the Sunday base ball 
game, and Sunday brass band. Is there any more harm 
in going to a circus than voting for laws that establish the 
saloon? Is there any more harm in going to the opera 
than in voting for candidates and with parties whose past 
policy and whose future promises are to adhere to a policy 
that has given this nation two hundred thousand saloons ? Is 
it any more wrong to blow a brass horn on Sunday than on 
Tuesday to rush to the polls and vote for men and with 
parties that pass, uphold and point with pride to laws that 
allow two hundred thousand saloons to send sixty thousand 
souls to hell every year? If you talk against these things. 
you ought to have courage enough to vote against them. 
Let us have a little more practical Christianity. Christ 
did not preach against the money changers and then vote 
for a policy and with a party that enacted a law permitting 
the old Pharisee and Sadducee parties to defile the temple 
week days and Sundays. He took a whip and lashed 
them out of it, and said, " Is it not written, my house shall 
be called of all nations the house of prayer? But ye have 
made it a den of thieves." The Scribes and Pharisees 
and chief priests had made the temple a den of thieves 
then, and the Scribes, Pharisees and chief priests have 
made two hundred thousand dens of thieves in this nation, 
and God's people are halting between two opinions : 
whether like Jesus they shall scourge out the hypocrites 
who are making it a den of thieves, or by their ballots 
sustain the policy of the political bosses and permit this 
hellish work to go on. God help you, brethren, to be 



28 Solid Shot. 

true servants of God. May he help you to see that you 
cannot disguise or mask a criminal business under the 
guise of politics and make a thing politically right that is 
morally wrong. Let us have faith in God. Let us prac 
tice what we preach and vote as we pray, and thus wipe 
out the dens of thieves made by these license laws, and be 
true to God and he will call his angels at the close of our 
lives to get the crown ready, and he will command them 
to " open the gates, and bid us come up higher." 

But, my friends, is it not strange to find that both the 
old parties are alike on this liquor question? The Ohio 
Democracy at Cleveland said : 

We declare in favor of a proper regulation of the liquor traffic, and 
believe it to be the duty of all good citizens to aid in reducing to a mini- 
mum the evils resulting therefrom, and to this end favor the submission 
of an amendment to the constitution providing for the license of such 
traffic. 

Why is it not the duty of all good citizens to aid in 
reducing the liquor traffic itself to the lowest minimum, 
instead of the evils resulting thereirom ? Has Democracy 
degenerated in Ohio? In 1851 the Democracy said, " We 
will not share the profits of the liquor traffic." You had 
men then with backbone, not things with a piece of gris 
tie run up their back with a rib here and there stuck in ; 
manly men who declared that the damnable business of 
making paupers and criminals in Ohio should never have 
the sanction of the law. Think of it, license the traffic to 
reduce the evils. It is like cutting a hole in a dam to stop 
the outpour of water. Get revenue and get control is 
another cry. You might as well try to stop the eruptions 
of Vesuvius with a sheaf of oats straw as to get control 
and reduce to a minimum the evils of the liquor traffic 
under license. The idea of establishing a business to get 
control of it, so as to reduce the evils resulting from it, is 
a good deal like biting a man with a rattlesnake in order 
to reduce the evils of the bite by curing him with whisky. 



The Bible and the Saloon. 29 

The cure and evil can be obviated by killing the snake. 
Kill the saloon and you will neither have to ' point with 
pride " or " declare for license." God help the true men 
of the Democratic party to get up out of the gutters of 
the still houses and the saloon and look backwards. Look 
backwards to the decision of a Democratic Supreme Court 
of the United States. Better look backwards than not at 
all. Listen to one of the Supreme Justices. Justice 
Grier said : 

If it be claimed that the government will lose revenue (speaking of the 
liquor traffic) if this class of legislation is sustained, better that the gov- 
ernment lose the revenue than the people of the government become de- 
bauched. 

There is no issue between the old parties except spoils. 
You cant tell what a man believes because he votes the 
Democratic ticket. Cleveland, Carlisle- and others were 
closeted together at Red Top for a week to find something 
for a Democrat to believe, and adjourned, leaving no issue 
and finding none. All that is necessary is to take your 
liquor straight and vote the Democratic ticket. 

You can't tell what a man believes by seeing that he 
votes the Republican ticket. He may be a protective 
tariff man or a free trader, hard or soft money, for God 
or the devil ; he may be a gambler or saint, a saloon-keep- 
er or temperance man, all he has to do is to point with 
pride to his ancestors who livei and died a generation ago 
and vote the Republican ticket. My Democratic friend, 
you can pack your knapsack and walk over into the Re- 
publican camp, leave nothing behind, take nothiug with 
you and find nothing when you get there. Both the old 
parties can live in the same room and the world could 
never tell the difference unless a bone in the shape of a 
postoffice was thrown in, and the fellow who got it would 
gnaw it, and the other would sit back and growl. Neither 
party has declared for a single thing that will make the 
home better, the boys purer, the country happier. 



30 Solid Shot. 

There is an issue that is important, overwhelming. It 
is the perpetuity of our government. Its stability and 
integrity is threatened by the fact that the two mighty 
political parties are in the clutches of the liquor traffic, 
u which is going on both by day and by night, filling our 
poorhouses, jails and penitentiaries," and neither can 
throttle this monster that caused Rome to decline and 
swept Athens from its pinnacle of grandeur and caused 
the grandest nation to go down forever in gloom and dis- 
grace. Both of these old parties must go under that the 
government may be wrenched from the grasp of this giant 
evil. Joseph Cook says this " monster traffic has got the 
the Republican party by the beard, and the Democratic 
party b} r the throat " We must loosen this grasp from 
both to get material to build and strengthen the grander 
and more glorious Prohibition party. To-day the liquor 
traffic parades its power before the people. In New York 
the other day it turned out one thousand carriages in pro- 
cession parading its wealth and strength to notify the 
country of its political and financial power. 

The procession was significant. It rolled in the wealth 
which it had robbed from the people. Every carriage 
represented many destroyed homes. Every horse a 
destroyed family. Every strip of leather in the harness 
a lost soul ; every buckle and tongue and punched hole in 
the harness a debauched boy or man. Every spoke in the 
wheels a manhood degraded and unfitted for true citizen- 
ship, and the whole represented the degraded, debauched 
procession of 600,000 drunkards, 300,000 prostitutes, 2,000,- 
000 of children worse than orphans, 600,000 drunkards' 
wives, and that fearful procession more advanced the 70,000 
hanging on to the round of drunkenness reaching down to 
the bottomless pit, swinging and swaying, and from which 
they are plunging into hell. They can not all fall into 
procession. As large an army almost are in the poor 
houses, jails and penitentiaries. And yet all this sad 



The Bible and the Saloon. 31 

condition is fostered by over 200,000 saloons established 
by Christian votes under the administration of the Re- 
publican and Democratic parties, and hundreds of good 
Republicans and Democrats who believe in prohibition 
are afraid to vote with us for fear the other whisky party 
will get in. God bless you, we have all this and both 
parties have been in and neither one made the condition 
any better. All this is upon us and has been here for 
years, and you are talking about the tariff. The tariff 
never made a moral man, a sober man, a Christian man. 
Prohibition makes all three. You can not get one of the 
old parties to run towards a principle. They remind me 
of the boy's pony. The boy was leading his pony past a 
neighbor's early one morning and the neighbor said, u My 
son, why don't you ride your pony?'' " Well," says the 
boy, ;> I'll tell you, but I don't want every one to know it. 
You see, this pony won't budge a foot with me on him 
going from home, so I lead him as far from home as I can, 
and then get on him and turn him for home, and if you 
watch will see me go by here lickity cut."' 

You try one of the ol i parties on a principle such as 
prohibition and it won't budge an inch, but lead it away 
out, then head it for the office and then stand off and watch 
it, and you will see it go by lickity cut, and don't you 
forget it 

The home, my friends, against the saloon, is involved in 
this contest. Shall we defend our boys and make it as 
hard as possible for them to go wrong, and as easy as pos- 
sible for them to go right? Or shall we stand by the old 
parties and help to send them down to ruin? This ques- 
tion must be settled by the ballot. What shall it be? . 
Clean? For clean men? For just laws? Or shall we fall 
into the methods of the politicians and struggle for spoils, 
not principles, to the end that hatred and strife may b e 
prolonged and demagogues rule? 

I know how hard it is to leave an old party. I tried it. 



32 Solid Shot. 

But if we all get together we will all be there. The power 
to vote will remain, we can legislate and legislate right, 
and that is the only way to settle the liquor traffic. In 
going into a clean party we will lose nothing, but will find 
ourselves on a common ground against a common enemy. 
We want all Christians with us, we want all good Repub- 
licans and Democrats, men and women with us. We are 
Prohibitionists because we love our fellow men. Come 
with us and let us so love our fellow men that we will 
crush out every saloon and den of iniquity that tempts 
our neighbors, our boys and men. God rewards the lovers 
of men: 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) 

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 

And saw within the moonlight in his room 

Making it rich, like a lily in bloom, 

An angel, writing in a book of gold. 

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 

And to the presence in his room he said, 

" What writest thou?" The vision raised its head 

And with a look made all of sweet accord 

Answered, " The names of those that love the Lord." 

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so," 

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, 

But cheerily still, and said, " I pray thee then 

Write me as one that loves his fellow men." 

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 

He came again, with a great waking light. 

And showed the names whom love of God had blest. 

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. 

God be with you till we meet again. 



CHRIST OR BARABBAS? 



CHRISTIANS MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN RIGHT AND 
WRONG — IT IS CHRIST FOR THE HOME, BA- 
RABBAS FOR THE SALOON. 



SPEECH BY M. V. B. BENNETT. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I have selected the following as my text : " Therefore 
when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them^ 
whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus 
which is called Christ?" Matt, xxvii :17. 

The history of the world does not furnish another ques- 
tion of such moment as is contained in the text just read. 
Nor do the reports of judicial lore record a case of so 
great importance to mankind as the one twice tried with- 
out finding the accused stained with guilt, recorded in 
the short account of the trial of Jesus by the evangelist 
Matthew. 

Jerusalem was shaken to its foundation. That vast city 
was like a surging, rolling, boisterous ocean amidst the 
most terrible storm. Business was suspended and all the 
people pushing, crowding and trampling each other to get 
to the scene of the trial and catch a glimpse oi the 
accused. What an august prisoner! God was on trial 
before man. God's creatures were the accusers. The 
created cried for the blood of the Creator. u Crucify him ! 
Crucify him!"' rang from lip to lip and pealed from throat 
to throat throughout that vast city. 

The Judge trembled, his wife prayed, and white with 

fear the Governor washed his hands, thinking thereby to 

cleanse them from the anticipated blood of the a just 

mai ,' who stood before that howling Jerusalem mob. A 

iii 



34 Solid Shot. , 

message from the wife of the Judge was eagerly opened 
and read by Pilate, but it only added agony to his excite- 
ment, for it begged him to have nothing to do with that 
"just man." Here was a just man, an innocent man, a 
true man. Not only man, but the Son of God, Christ 
Jesus, very man and very God, on trial before puny man, 
and a furious mob clamoring for his blood. 

Never before on earth was such a scene. The world 
never before looked upon such a prisoner. Crowned with 
thorns which were forced into his sacred head until the 
blood crimsoned brow and cheek ; insulted and mocked ; 
struck in the face and spit upon ; pulled and pushed like 
a tramp, and then led out bleeding and smitten into the 
presence of a devilish mob, which was asked, " Whom will 
ye that I release unto you, Barabbas, or Jesus which is 
called the Christ ?'' What a question ! What an answer! 
What a tribunal to finally determine the gravest question 
ever attempted by man! 

There were two trials in this case, one before Herod and 
one before Pilate, and both found no guilt in the accused, 
but through fear of the loss of power and the fury of the 
populace, the bleeding, insulted, mocked and scourged 
Savior was led out on the porch of the temple to await 
the verdict of a blood-thirsty mob, A criminal of the 
deepest dye, a man whose hand had been against every 
man, whose life had been a life of rapine and crime, no 
horror too great for his perpetration, no infamy so deep 
that he did not sound it, no mountain of sin so high that 
he did not scale it, reeking with insurrection and stained 
with the blood of murder, was to be placed before the mob 
with Jesus. The mob was to vote. They wanted a " free 
ballot and a fair count," just as the old parties clamor for 
now. The mob was to make choice The one a criminal, 
the other innocent ; the one smeared with crime, the other 
stainless ; the one the enemy of humanity, the other its 
best and dearest friend ; the one the enemy of the home, 



Christ or Barabbas? 35 

the other its defender and protector ; the one steeped in 
every sin, the other joyous in every virtue and sinless ; 
the one a fallen, impure, despicable, murderous man, the 
other pure, noble, the Truth, the Way, the Light, the Life, 
the Word, both man and God. 

Whom will they choose? Ah, which would you have 
chosen? Yea, which do you choose now? 

Jesus didn't get a vote, but " Barabbas ! Barabbas ! 
Barabbas I" screamed the mob, and all Jerusalem said, 
Amen. 

But " what shall I do with Jesus, which is called the 
Christ?'' What will you do with him? What will you 
do with his teachings ? What will you do with his exam- 
ple ? What will you do with his life ? What will you do 
with his word ? No wonder the " veil of the temple was 
rent in twain from top to bottom " and the earth rocked 
and rocks were shattered and piled up in heaps. The mob 
cried out, " Crucify him!" and to day it is sending up the 
same cry. 

To day the mob cries out, "Release to us Barabbas!" 
Every saloon in the land cries out, " Barabbas !" Every 
law-making power that sanctions a saloon demands the 
release of Barabbas and cries out, "Crucify Christ!" Every 
tax law and license law that establishes, tolerates or per- 
mits the saloon is the howling mob demanding the release 
of Barabbas, and the statutory yell to crucify Jesus. The 
gambling hells and brothels kept in existence and nurtured 
by the saloon belong to the frenzied mob that asked for 
release of Barabbas and cry out, " Crucify him, crucify 
him!" 

The political party that establishes by enactment a 
saloon tax law or license law and the men who support 
the party by their votes belong to the same mob and are 
crying by their ballots, " Release unto us Barabbas and 
crucify Christ!" 



36 Solid Shot. , 

What will you do with Jesus ? What ought we to do 
with him? What ought we to do with his teachings? 
What ought we to do with his example ? The old parties 
do not ask you these questions They do not care what 
you do with Jesus so they get your votes. My brother, 
my sister, let me lay down a rule, if you have any doubts 
about this matter, that, if you follow it, you will never go 
wrong. Does the teaching of Christ sanction the saloon ? 
Do his example and life approve the saloon ? Would 
Christ himself sanction or approve a licensed or taxed 
saloon any quicker than he would an unlicensed or un- 
taxed saloon ? Would Christ vote for a saloon or with a 
party that would endorse a tax law saloon ? 

Every Christian man and woman present who thinks or 
believes that Christ would endorse, approve or vote for a 
saloon hold up your hands. * * * * Not a hand up. 
My Christian friends, you that love Jesus and follow him, 
tell me how you can vote for a party that endorses what 
Jesus does not and still be true to Christ ? Whom are you 
for when you vote for the saloon ? Barabbas or Christ ? 
But you say, tC We did not vote for the saloon." Then how 
did it get here ? You answer, " The legislature gave us 
the saloon." Yes, but how did that legislature get there? 
You put it there by your votes, on a platform that 
endorsed the licensing or taxing ot the saloon. The mob 
knew Barabbas was a murderer, but they demanded his 
release. You know that the saloon is a murderer and the 
men that you voted for knew the saloons were murderers, 
but they permit the saloon and you voted for them. You 
have no more right to pray to God to save your boys from 
the saloons and drunkards' graves and then vote for men 
whom you know endorse the saloons, than the howling 
mob at Jerusalem had to pray to God to save them from 
the murderer and then vote for his release. It is an insult 
to God for a man to pray to him to save his boy from 
becoming a drunkard and then go to the polls and vote 



Christ or Baraobas ? 37 

for a drunkard shop. Prohibition is God's plan. All his 
laws are prohibitory. Drunkenness, debauchery, gam- 
bling, prostitution, strife, murder, are all condemned by 
God, forbidden, prohibited. Christ is and was opposed to 
all these. Barabbas was in favor of them. Christ repre- 
sents everything good, holy, pure, just. Barabbas every- 
thing bad from the lowest to the highest crime. 

Prohibition says, be men, pure men, true men, godly 
men. The saloon says, be vile men, depraved men, de- 
bauched men, drunken men, devilish men. Barabbas or 
Christ, which ? Prohibition or the saloons, which ? My 
friends, why do you halt between two opinions ? This 
question of choice, Barabbas or Christ, is before you. There 
is only one way to settle it, and that is at the ballot-box. 

ki Oh," but says some one, " I do not believe in taking 
Christ into politics." Why not ? Ought we not to take 
Christ every place with us, if we are Christians ? What 
kind of religion have you got that you can't take it with 
you into politics? I hear some one who thinks he is just 
as good a Christian as I am say, it is not a proper place or 
the proper thing to take Christ into the dirty pool of pol- 
itics, it is not a decent place. Then I would advise you to 
not go there yourself. Who made the political pool dirty ? 
You help to do it by voting with your party right or 
wrong. Any place that you cannot take the Savior is not 
a fit place for a follower of the Savior to go. 

But I said I would give you a rule that you might never 
go wrong. Never go where you cannot take Jesus with 
you. I wish every Christian in this nation would be 
governed by this rule. How long do you suppose the 
American saloon would last if all the Christians would 
live up to this rule ? A party that favored the saloon, tax 
or no tax, license or no license, would not last twenty-four 
hours.' 

You find some Christians who will say that " I can not 
go back on the dear old party, on account of its record ; it 



38 Solid Shot. 

has done so much in its younger days, and has such a fine 
war record." Lucifer had a splendid record before he fell, 
why do you go back on him ? Benedict Arnold had a fine 
record before he betrayed American arms, why do you not 
stick to him ? Jeff Davis parades a record, but he fired on 
the flag. But you despise him even with his present 
record of being in favor of local option, like Ohio Repub- 
licans and Iowa Democrats. Judas had a good record, 
but he betrayed Christ, and the Jerusalem mob could not 
go back on his record, and clamored for the release of his 
best friend, Barabbas. 

I know a number of Christians who had fine records, 
but they have gone from the pulpit to the gutter. Ought 
we to stand by them on account of their records ? What 
would Jesus say to one of these fallen ones were he to try 
to enter the New Jerusalem on his past record ? Do you 
think he would say, " I can't go back on his record. I'll 
take him in. He'll come round all right if we wait. The 
time hasn't come yet for him to reform, and besides if I 
were to go back on him and stand by that young brother 
who is pure and true, I am afraid that Democratic preach- 
er that is just as much of a drunkard and has a worse 
record, will get in." No, no, that is not God's plan. I do 
not care how good a record a man or a party has had ; 
what is he or it now ? 

"Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." 
Barabbas, when young, may have had a splendid record. 
He may have been pure, true, kind, innocent and lovable, 
but he became debauched, a criminal, a murderer, and the 
mob knew it, but they couldn't go back on his record, and 
they demanded his release and cried out crucify Christ. 

But says some good Republican, " We must do the best 
we can, don't go too fast We'll get there by and by. 
The Republican party will come up to prohibition after a 
while." You have been saying this for twenty years, why 
have you not got there? Where are you now? From 



Christ or Barabbas ? 39 

twenty six millions of gallons of whisky in 1862, you 
have got up to eighty six millions of gallons in 1888, and 
from sixty millions of gallons of beer in 1862, you have 
got up to eight hundred millions of gallons in 1888, and 
all this while waiting for the Republican party to get 
there. You are not a " get there " party. 

" We did the best we could," says some apologist. This 
reminds me of the boy who had followed a very homely 
man who came to the boy's town. The man noticed the 
boy following him and staring at him, and he said, u Why 
are you following me and gazing at me so?' The boy 
replied, " Because you are the ugliest man I ever saw." 
"Well," says the man, U I can not help that." The boy 
replied, " You might have staid at home." This "did the 
best we could" party had better have died or staid at 
home. 

You have a tax law in Ohio that lets every criminal and 
villain in the land go into the saloon business, if he can 
put up two hundred and fifty dollars to pay the tax ; then 
he can proceed to put your husbands, fathers and sons into 
drunkards' graves, your mothers, wives and daughters into 
houses of ill fame, and wreck home and humanity. 

You had a law that allowed these criminals to open a 
saloon on Sunday, start a beer garden and open a dance 
hall on the holy Sabbath day, and make the day that the 
Savior consecrated to praise and prayer with his blood, a 
day of revelry and debauch; and pretended Christian 
men, when this infamy was pointed out and denounced by 
Prohibitionists, would sing out, ''Hold on, the dear old 
party will get there after while." Get where? From the 
road it is traveling and by the guide-boards it is putting, 
up, the saloons, dance halls, gambling dens and brothels, 
hell must not be far off. 

Your last legislature repealed the Sunday clause of the 
Dow law, but it was the intention of the leaders of the 
dear old party to entomb the bill, and it would have slept 



40 Solid Shot. 

the sleepfof death had not seven Democratic senators 
come to the relief of the Christian people and forced the 
passage of the Owen bill ; not because they revered the 
Sabbath, but because they wanted to make political cap- 
ital out of it. Shame on a party that will gamble with 
the public health and public morals of the people for 
political capital. Both parties are gamblers and both care 
not a straw for the morals of the people. 

Wendell Phillips relates that the Emperor Nicholas 
ordered his engineers to lay down for him a railway from 
St. Petersburg to Moscow, and presently the engineers 
brought him a large cardboard on which was laid down 
like a snake the designed path for_ the iron locomotive 
between the two capitals. "What's that ?" said Nicholas. 
u That's the best road," was the reply. " What do you 
make it crooked for ?" " Why, we turn this way to touch 
the great city, and to the left to reach that immense mass 
of people, and to the right again to suit the business of 
that district," " Yes." 

The Emperor turned over the card,|made a new dot for 
Moscow, and another dot for St. Petersburg, took a ruler, 
made a straight line from one to the other and said, 
a Build me that road." " But what will become of this 
depot of trade, that town ?" " I don't know ; they must 
look out for themselves." 

The Kepublican party has been mapping out the plan 
of prohibition and has brought us a line crooked as a run- 
ning snake and we ask them, "What is that?" They 
reply, " It is the pathway between the home we want to 
elevate and the saloon we want to destroy." " What do 
you make it crooked for ?" And Republicanism answers, 
4 * We turn this way by the local option bill, to catch the 
temperance vote; and this way by the repeal of the 
Sunday law, to catch the Christian votes of the Western 
Reserve ; and to the left to hold the beer-guzzling vote of 
Cleveland ; and to the right again by adding fifty dollars 



Christ or Bar abbas ? 41 

to the tax and putting all saloons on a level, to hold the 
slum vote that crowd the Murderers Corner saloons of 
Cincinnati, established by the Coxes, whose political vil 
lainy is rewarded by presents of gold headed canes from 
Governor and State officers, and because the Cincinnati 
Commercial commands us.'' 

Prohibition turns the card over and makes a new dot for 
the home, another for the saloon, and draws a straight line 
between them, and exclaims, " Move on that line against 
the saloon." " But what will become of the Republican 
and Democratic parties ?" We answer, " We do not 
know; they must take care of themselves.'' And to 
paraphrase the language of the great commoner of Mas- 
sachusetts, Wendell Phillips, " Prohibition says of the 
home and of the saloon, this is justice and that iniquity; 
the track of God's thunder bolt is a straight line from one 
to the other, and the political parties or churches that 
cannot stand it must go out of the way.'' 

You say, " The party that adopts that plan would be 
defeated." Of course it would, and so may we be defeated 
on that line for the present. But there are two kinds of 
defeat. Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows 
nothing but victories. Prohibition knows no defeat. 
Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat, but Liberty dates from 
it, though Warren lay dead on the field. 

The victory that brings spoils invariably brings disgrace. 
But that is true victory that sinks beneath an overwhelm- 
ing assault, or, succeeding, crowns success with a principle. 
Christ was overwhelmed. The mob triumphed over a 
trembling, cringing ruler, and a bleeding Savior was 
hanged on the tree, but the tomb of Aramathea was not 
strong enough to hold the t; dead and buried," and while 
the earth rocked and the sealed stone flew from the mouth 
of the grave, success was crowned by the risen, living 
truth. Measured by this rule, where are you in Ohio ? 

Christian people demand the repeal of the Sunday 



42 Solid Shot. 

opening clause of the Dow law, and the gathering public 
sentiment found expression in the Owen bill. Praise God 
for the Owen bill No credit is due either of the old 
parties. Trickery buried it, trickery exhumed it. This 
bill passed the House and the storm of wrath from the 
liquor men came, twisting and bending the Republican 
saplings of the legislative forest as though it would tear 
them out root and branch; your leading Republican 
journals made your political sky black with thundering 
denunciations, and the saloon rabble threatened the Re- 
publican party with defeat and disaster, and the poltroons 
of the House, called Representatives, immediately recon 
sidered the vote by which the bill passed and tried to 
recall it, and would have succeeded but for parliamentary 
strategy, which left the bill in the Senate. Then the 
scheme of the Republican party was to bury the bill 
forever. 

A cold blooded bargain was made with the liquor men, 
that if they would not kick at the Poorman bill, that 
raised the tax from two hundred dollars to two hundred 
and fifty dollars, the Owen bill should slumber until the 
crack of doom. As proof of this, here is what your own 
papers say about it. The Sandusky Begister, one of the 
leading Republican papers of the State, speaks as follows : 

The so-called Owen Sunday law simply strikes out of the Dow law the 
following clause : 

" Provided that nothing in this section shall prevent the council of any 
municipal corporation in the State from regulating and controlling on 
such first day of the week the sale of beer and native wines in such man- 
ner as may by ordinance be provided." 

And re-enacts section 6944 of the revised statutes, which provides that 
whoever shall sell any spirituous liquors on Sunday shall be fined, etc., 
a Democratic law passed nearly forty years ago and on the statute 
books during all these years until the passage of the Bow law. If 
anybody kicks he should kick at the old Democratic party. 

The Commercial- Gazette (Rep ) says: 

We were opposed to changing a word of the Dow law, and consented 
to the addition of the fifty-dollar tax only on the information that the State 



Christ or Bar abbas ? 43 

treasury was hard pressed, and that fifty dollars per saloon, to go to the 
State, would meet this emergency, and take no more money out of Hamil- 
ton county than an ordinary State tax to the same amount, which would 
have to be levied if the additional saloon tax were not laid. 

Behind this, as we understand the case, were two conditions : 
First, that there should be no more changes in the Dow law — that the 
tax should not be increased above the two hundred and fifty dollars — 
and that the Owen bill should at least be suppressed. 

******** 

But the Democrats ransacked the Republican grave-yard, having care- 
fully noted the sods that had been turned in burying the Owen bill, and 
they yanked it out and whooped it up and ran it through before our new 
council could act. 

The weakness of the situation was that no one cared to vote against a 
bill that in form called for the suppression of the liquor traffic on Sunday; 
and such bills as that by Mr. Owen are always popularly taken by the 
promise rather than the performance. 

A majority of Republicans in the Legislature, we have reason to 
believe, thought the Owen bill should not pass ; that it was extremely 
injudicious and uncalled for, and should be detained at least until the 
adjourned session, so as to give the municipal councils the opportunity 
under pressure from the State at large to make the Sunday regulations they 
had neglected. 

This idea would undoubtedly have prevailed if it had not been for 
Democrats both in the House and in the Senate, who became agitators and 
irritators and insisted upon twice digging up the bill which the Republi- 
cans had buried in each House. 

This is the evidence of Republican crookedness. The 
Democrats were not a party to this nefarious bargain and 
sale, but, scanning the ground, they satisfied themselves 
that if the Owen bill was smothered the Western Reserve 
would consign the representatives of that region to pri- 
vate life, but still vote the Republican ticket. They 
weighed the matter well. They knew that the -German 
and foreign element left the Democratic party on the sla- 
very question, because they could not see how that party 
could be for liberty and at the same rime coquet for the. 
slavery vote, and they said to themselves, " vVe can trust 
the foreigner Republican ; when he says he is for personal 
liberty he means it ; he wants his beer and whisky ; he 
wants his open beer garden, his Sunday dance ; these 
Western Reserve fellows dare not vote against the Owen 



44 Solid Shot. 

bill, and enough of other Republicans with our help will 
vote to take the bill from the Republican Potter's Field 
and pass it, and we will call up the dead and wipe out the 
Sunday saloon. It is a trick, we know, but no more a 
trick to awaken the dead than to entomb the living.'' So 
they stood at the grave and cried out, " Roll ye away the 
stone," " Owen bill, come forth," and out from the debris 
and rubbish of political demagoguery came the Owen bill 
corpse, bound in the grave clothes of legislative trickery, 
and they exclaimed, u Loose it and let it go." Seven- 
elevenths of the Democrats of the Senate voted for it, 
eighteen twenty-fifths of the Republicans voted for it, but 
not enough of the dear old party to carry it without the 
Democratic vote. Then came a howl from the Republican 
menagerie such as has never been heard before. The 
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette (Rep.) says: 

The true policy for the Republicans to have pursued with respect to the 
saloon Sunday question was to let it alone * * . . - * * * 

It was the pleasure of the Democrats, however, to force the issue in this 
matter! 

Again the same paper says: 

The law is of very little practical importance except so far as it may 
he noticed through artifices of evasion ; and the Democracy will ascertain 
after a time that their double dealing and hypocrisy will not serve them. 
The bill had really been buried, but Democratic senators dug it up. 

What a howl from the kennel. " Hypocrisy !" " Double 
dealing!" Who has been guilty of hypocrisy? The De- 
mocracy ? Yea, verily ; but who else ? What did Owen 
introduce the bill for ? Was it introduced in good faith to 
repeal the infamous clause of the Dow law that opened 
the saloon on Sunday, which the entire Republican party 
and the Commercial endorse4 at the ballot box last fall ? 
Or was it introduced to make Christian temperance men 
believe that Republicanism was in favor of closing the 
saloons on Sunday, notwithstanding they endorsed the 
opening of saloons on Sunday, when they deliberately 
voted for Foraker and the platform at the last election ? 



Christ or Barabbas? 45 

Then, after the bill was introduced and passed by the 
House, Republican Senators " buried the bill, but Demo- 
cratic Senators dug it up." Ah, indeed. No hypocrisy 
about the funeral! Only in the resurrection ! Of course 
it was hypocrisy on the part of the Democrats, for they 
did not desire the principle, but it was the Republican 
party that introduced a bill to catch the votes of the rural 
roosters and Christian voters of the Western Reserve and 
then buried it to hold the slum vote of Cleveland and 
Cincinnati. The cry of " double dealing " on the part of 
the Republican party over this matter is the old cry of 
"stop thief." I am no apologist for the Democracy. 
In this matter the Democrats and Republicans both 
resorted to the same subterfuge ; they are six of one and 
half a dozen of the other, and neither can be trusted 
But the Commercial Gazette still talks. Listen, it says: 

If there is to be any credit attached to the passage of the law, it belongs 
to the Democrats, who extracted it from the Republican graveyard where 
its tombstone was erected. 

Who ever heard of credit being accorded to " double 
dealing" and "hypocrisy" before? But had the Owen 
bill slumbered until the crack of doom, the Commercial 
Gazette would have boiled over with flattery and praise to 
the most damnable hypocrisy that ever disgraced legisla- 
tive life. The Western Reserve Republicans will rant 
over what the Republican legislature has done by repeal- 
ing the Sunday clause of the Dow law, to hold the 
temperance and religious vote of the party, this one more 
time, while the Commercial Gazette and other leading 
Republican papers will saddle the passage of the Owen 
bill, which orders the closing of the beer gardens, dance 
halls and Sunday saloons, on the Democratic party, and 
the gudgeons of the Republican party, and pretended 
Christians will walk up and vote once more for a party 
that makes pledges only to violate them, and when caught 
at "double dealing" and i; hypocrisy" charges it to the 



46 Solid Shot. , 

Democracy, and whose leading papers openly denounce 
the repeal of the Sunday saloon law as a trick of Demo- 
crats. Brethren, are you not making choice of Barabbas? 
Is it not the trial over again? How can you trust either 
of the old Pharisee or Sadducee parties? Both are for 
Barabbas. 

The Democratic party says it is for the saloon. We 
can never get prohibition by or through the Democratic 
party. It makes no bones about being opposed to prohi- 
bition. It should deceive no one. The Republican party 
on prohibition is only deceit and treachery. There is not 
a leading Republican paper in the United States in favor 
of the principle of prohibition. The National Republican 
party is not in favor of prohibition. The Commercial Ga- 
zette says: 

It would not help prohibition to elect the Republican ticket, because as 
a body they are opposed to prohibition. 

Again it says: 

The brewers' interests in Ohio are in no more danger from a Republican 
than from a Democratic administration. 

But, listen. I am not done with this political juggler; 
the Commercial Gazette says: 

There is one mistake that some of the temperance men who are sincere 
and honorable are liable to make. It is that of insisting that the Republi- 
can party must adopt their great and only principle, or brave their steady 
animosity. The Republican party is not going to adopt their great and 
only principle, and that is all there is of it. The Republican party has its 
distinct work to do and that of the Prohibition party is not a part of it. 
This might as well be recognized now as hereafter and action taken 
accordingly. There are hundreds of saloons in Cincinnati and other Ohio 
cities that are substantially Republican club-houses. 

This is the Republican doctrine of Ohio as spoken by 
its great organ, the Commercial- Gazette. But Ohio is not 
alone. The Brooklyn Daily Times, a leading Republican 
paper, says: 

The Republican party is not, and can not be made a prohibition party. 
The Republican party can not and will not accept their platform. So far 
as the Republican party is concerned, its course is clear. Let it be dis- 



Christ or Barabbas ? 47 

tinctly understood that we have no terms to make with Prohibitionists ; that 
we believe that the legislation they seek is a gross and unwarranted 
outrage on the liberty of free citizens, and that as Republicans we shall 
oppose them to the end. Hereafter let them seek favor from the Democrats ; 
they have nothing to expect from the Republicans. If we were given to 
profanity we would say d n the Prohibition cranks. 

My Christian friends of the Republican party, how do 
you like this showing? It is from your leading journals. 
You have been following them, voting the ticket they put 
up and endorsing the platforms they make. They have 
shouted, * l Crucify him, v and you have yelled, " Give us 
Barabbas.' 1 

The Springfield (111.) Globe (Rep.) sayr. 

The Republican party as a party believes that the liquor traffic should 
pay its just share of taxation. It does not believe in license, yet if the 
impractical Prohibitionists continue in their opposition to the regulation 
of the traffic, and force the people to choose between prohibition and 
license, the latter will be engrafted in the constitution. 

The Chicago Tribune, one of the largest dailies of the 
West and the mouth-piece of the western Republicans, 



Prohibition originated with the Democrats. They passed the Maine 
law, which has always been the mainstay and model of prohibition legis- 
lation elsewhere. Not long afterwards the Democrats of Illinois passed a 
similar law. There are other evidences that the Democratic party is 
identified much more than the Republican party with prohibition politics. 
Prohibition laws prevail much more widely throughout the Democratic 
South than the Republican North. In the rural districts everywhere there 
are as many Prohibitionists among the Democrats as among the Republi- 
cans. * * Prohibition must be prohibited in the Republican party. 

The Cook county (111.) Republican club : 

Resolved, That we utterly condemn and denounce as a measure essen- 
tially un-Republican and despotic the adoption of constitutional amend- 
ments prohibiting the manufacture and sale of fermented or distilled 
beverages. 

The Illinois State Journal (Rep.) says: 

The quicker he (Neal Dow) and all others get it out of their heads that 
the Republican party is a prohibition party the better. 

The Republican party of Michigan and Oregon beat 
prohibition to save the party in those States. In Texas 



48 Solid Shot. 

and Tennessee it helped the Democracy and Jeff Davis 
defeat prohibition in the interest of local option. In 
Massachusetts the Republican party sat down on prohibi 
tion and in New Hampshire they violated every pledge 
which they made. 

When has the party as such taken a stand for prohibition? 
And I now call your attention to this fact, you are either 
for prohibition of the liquor traffic or you are not. You 
can not as honest Christian men remain aloof from the 
great question. It is before the people to be chosen or 
rejected. You stand where the rebel stood in Jerusalem 
at the memorable trial of Christ. It was Barabbas or 
Christ then ; it is Barabbas or Christ now. You must 
choose. We are charged with this choice by God and our 
loved ones. I hold up before you the scales ; in one side 
is the saloon, the houses of ill fame, the gambling hells, 
and all the vice, misery and woe of the land ; on the other 
is the home, mother, wife and children, the school, the 
religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. One must kick the 
beam. The ballot is the pivot on which the scales must 
turn ; by your vote one or the other must come down. 
Which shall triumph, Barabbas or Christ? 

We Methodists sing a beautiful hymn. And Prohibition 
Methodists can sing it as it is. You Republican and 
Democratic Methodists, I am afraid, sing it with a mental 
addition. It is a beautiful hymn, and is entitled " White 
as Snow." Let me repeat a verse of it. as I imagine you 
sing it: 

Lord Je3us, I long to be perfectly whole; 

I want thee forever to live in my soul; 
Break down every idol (except the Republican and Democratic parties), 
cast out every foe (except license law). 

Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. 

Do not come to me averring that you are Christians 
until the idol you worship more than you do your God is 
broken down. Do not parade your religion until the 



Clirist or Barabbas ? 49 

liquor license foe is cast out of your hearts and you stand, 
before God clean and pure, consecrated men and women, 
ready to do and die in this battle of the home against the 
saloon, 

O ! men of my native State, I pray you to break down 
the idol of party. Cast out this licensed saloon foe and 
take your stand on the side of prohibition, " and having 
done all things to stand." Now is the hour of salvation. 
Barabbas or Christ, which? 

We are living, we are dwelling 

In a grand and awful time, 
In an age on ages telling— 

To be living is sublime. 

Oh ! let all the soul within you 

For the truth's sake go abroad; 
Strike ! let every nerve and sinew 

Tell on ages— tell for God. 



50 Solid Shot. 



TARIFF AND TRUSTS, 



THE EFFECT OF TARIFF, FREE TRADE AND THE LIQUOR 
TRAFFIC ON THE WORKINGMAN. 



SPEECH BY M. V. B. BENNETT. 



My Fair Countrywomen and Men of Ohio ; 

I find these words in the 24th verse of the 4th chapter 
of Ephesians: " Wherefore putting away lying, speak 
every man truth with his neighbor ; for we are members 
one of another." 

Let us speak the truth then. The prohibition question, 
thank God, is not begging for hearers, it is urging them to 
action. It does not come to you clothed in glittering 
generalities, but bottomed on facts, bristling with argu- 
ments and clothed with moral sequence fraught with so 
much good or weal to our nation that you cannot avoid it. 
It confronts you with a logic tinged with all the ethics of 
human life, based on human happiness which commands 
your attention, and demands a settlement by the only 
tribunal on earth that can settle it right. 

It meets humanity at the fireside, it accompanies the 
voting members of the household to the ballot-box, it 
knocks at the door of every conscience and claims from 
every freeman an honestly deposited 'free ballot," speak- 
ing in thunder tones to the liquor traffic of the United 
States and saying in a "fair count v the saloon must go, 
and go now. 

All other questions are dwarfed, compared to this, into 
insignificance. There is no way to measure its importance 
except by the hopes, ambition and expectations of civil 
and religious government. 



Tariff and Trusts. 51 

Civil service sustains to it the same relation as the 
glimmer of the fire-fly does to the electric light. Tariff 
reduction, or the protective system, may be compared to 
it in the same degree as fox-fire to sunshine. The liquor 
traffic overshadows all other questions, as did the coming 
of the flood to the ante-diluvian world not only engage 
their attention, but engulphed them all. So will this 
question, the liquor traffic, overwhelm this nation and 
destroy it unless met now and overcome by annihilation 
from the face of the country. Every other issue is a side 
issue, and should be side tracked until the Prohibition 
train with its load of churches, schools, homes and human- 
ity reaches the union depot of sobriety. Brethren, you 
may delay the train, you may throw across the track a 
tariff rail, or pile up and dump thereon civil service 
obstruction, but the saloon-catcher will sweep it clear and 
the train will move on under the care of an engineer who 
looks forward, never back. That the destruction of the 
saloon is decreed there can be no doubt. It is only a 
matter of time. There is but one way to destroy the 
saloon, and that is to destroy it. You can only destroy it 
by the ballot. Any ballot that endorses the policy of 
selling to the saloon the right to stay is a ballot for instead 
of against the saloon. 

Friends and brethren, the Prohibition party is the only 
party that can settle the question of the liquor traffic, 
which is the great question of the hour. The old parties 
would love to hide it under the hue and cry of tariff. The 
tariff is a financial question as to what shall go on the free 
list and what shall be protected. A free-trader does not 
go home from the Cobden Club at the dead hour of night 
and brain his wife because he wants to trade where he can 
buy the cheapest. A protectionist who wants the wool 
tariff restored and infant industries protected does not 
kick his infant child out of doors because he favors the 
American system of protection. A civil service reformer 



52 Solid Shot. . 

never goes home and smashes up the furniture or roasts 
his baby on a red hot stove because he wants a man to 
remain in office despite the politics of the administration. 
To the- victor belongs the-spoils Democrat does not stab or 
shoot his mother because he does not get the post-office. 
But the high-license murder shops, the recruiting stations 
of hell, sanctioned and established by the Republican and 
Democratic parties, send out volunteers to kill and slay 
wife and children because protected saloons and free trade 
moonshine hell holes are tolerated by both the old parties, 
and their clackers yell, " Up with the American system 
of protection,*' " Down with free trade," " Three cheers 
for the reduction of taxation ;" and the country reels and 
staggers under the liquor traffic, sending sixty thousand 
souls to the bottomless pit annually, permitted and pro- 
tected by the Republicans and Democrats, whose conven- 
tions are too cowardly to condemn this infamous curse 
that destroys the home, weakens the State and debauches 
humanity, and Christians cry Amen, and vote for the 
saloon, thus sustaining and perpetuating the murder shops 
and recruiting stations of hell. 

Every vote for the Republican or Democratic ticket is a 
vote for the saloon, a vote against the home, a vote for 
drunkenness, a vote for the gambling hells and bawdy 
houses of the land. Why ? Because, so long as the 
Republican and Democratic parties are in power, the 
saloon will exist, and the saloons engender all these evils. 

Every Christian man ought to be honest with himselt. 
He is either for prohibition or he is not. If not, his place 
is with the bummers and gamblers in the Democratic or 
Republican party. If for prohibition, then his place is 
with the Prohibition party. You cannot get prohibition 
by voting with the old parties any more than you can 
cross a river by going away from it. The way to get 
prohibition is to vote directly for it, with a party and for 
candidates pledged to give us prohibition. 



Tariff and Trusts. 53 

All the noise about civil service, tariff and surplus 
revenue is the cry of " Stop thief." It is like beating tin 
pans, blowing horns, ringing cow bells to stop bees from 
swarming. I notice the bees keep on and settle where 
they please. The American hive is swarming. A new 
swarm is coming out — prohibition bees at that— warranted 
to winter through. 

My friends, the entire surplus in the treasury is a mere 
bagatelle compared to the enormous waste of the liquor 
traffic. A little over two hundred millions are raised from 
certain duties. The surplus is not over one hundred 
millions, yet we spend for liquor $900,000,000 in the hell 
holes of the land. Plug up the hell holes. 

Annihilate the liquor traffic and this $900,000,000 of 
money wasted must seek profitable investment, and labor 
must be employed at fair wages, and that' settles the labor 
question. Destroy the liquor traffic, set the $900,000,000 
to work, and one million of men, additional laborers, are 
immediately demanded in the avocations of industry that 
build up society and the homes, instead of 36,863 laborers 
now engaged in manufacturing the liquor that causes the 
waste of $900,000,000. 

As an economic question alone without reference to the 
moral side of it, the suppression of the liquor traffic is 
worth more to America than all other questions combined. 
Hargreaves says that out of every $100 spent in the man- 
ufacture of liquors only $1.23 goes to the laborer who 
produced it ; while out of every $100 spent in manufac- 
turing boots and shoes $20.75 of it goes to the workman. 
Out of every $100 expended in making hardware $24.14 
of it goes to the factory hand. Let us help labor by 
encouraging the industries which will pay labor the best, 
and stamp out the traffic which both robs and damns labor 
the most. It is said by the same statistician that in the 
manufacture of $160,000,000 worth of woolen goods 86,000 
laborers are required. To manufacture $196,000,000 worth 



54 Solid Shot. 

of boots and shoes it requires 169,000 laborers. To manu- 
facture $210,000,000 worth of cotton goods requires 185,000 
persons, and yet 36,863 persons manufacture the liquor 
that causes the waste of $900,000,000. Talk about monop- 
olies or corporations. Laboring men, stop your strikes 
long enough to gaze at the giant of rum and then strike 
the dram shop, the liquor traffic, and you can never strike 
a lick amiss. Let us sum up It takes 86,000 persons to 
work up $160,000,000 of woolen goods. Let us put 
$160,000,000 of the $900,000,000 wasted for whisky into 
the manufacture of woolen goods. This will employ 
86,000 additional laborers. This will require more shops, 
higher price for wool, more labor, more and better wages. 
Then let's put $196,000,000 into boots and shoes. More 
leather, more shops, more shoemakers, more tan yards and 
169,000 more persons to labor and good wages, that settles 
the tariff on wool and leather, as the Mills bill and the 
"American system of protection " never can settle it. 
Then let us put $210,000,000 into the manufacture of 
cotton goods, this means more cotton plantations, more 
cotton planters, more cotton pickers, more spindles, more 
cotton gins, more cotton factories, more steam engines 
and 185,000 of workmen, which means more wages. This 
gives us all told : 

CAPITAL. 

Woolen workers . $ 86,000 $160,000,000 

Boot and shoe workers = 169,000 196,000,000 

Cotton workers 185,000 210,000,000 

Grand total workers $440,000 $566,000,000 

Leaving of the $900,000,000 about $354,000,000 for iron 
and glass, and that will settle protection quicker than all 
the Republicans in the world can do it. Stop the waste 
and turn the stream of wealth into the channels of 
industry and all party tracks and platforms will be sunk 
so deep that plummet can never sound them. If we look 
at the liquor traffic as an economical question, economy 



Tariff and Trusts. 55 

bids it go. If we look at it from the laborers' standpoint, 
honest industry cries out, go and go at once. If we 
contemplate it from a moral standpoint, the homes, the 
churches and schools rise upward with united voice and 
in God's name bid it begone. Look at it as you will it is 
evil and only evil. With its settlement almost every 
economical question is settled. Settle the liquor traffic 
right and the country's safety is assured. 

That prohibition is the overwhelming issue, I read what 
Hon. Hiram Price, of Iowa, a stalwart Republican, says of 
the issue in a letter to the Lever, of Chicago, August 2d, 
1888. In speaking of the formation of the Republican 
party, he says: 

I was a member of that committee; I had prepared a platform, one 
plank of which was as strongly in favor of legal prohibition of the liquor 
traffic as my knowledge of the English language' could make it, for I 
believed then, and I believe now, that no question of taxation or of 
revenue reform, or of anything connected with economical and safe 
administration of the affairs of government (to say nothing of good 
morals and the peace and quiet of the community) begins to compare 
with it in importance. 

No, not even tariff, high or low, or the reduction of the 
surplus of the treasury, compare with the liquor traffic 
problem. But Mr. Price continues: 

The liquor traffic is the giant evil of the day. It destroys, absolutely 
annihilates more of the earnings and property of the people than the 
revenues of the government derived from any and all sources amount to, 
and no man of any party more earnestly desires to see it buried without 
hope of resurrection than I do. 

Here is stalwart testimony. It is a greater question 
than tariff, a greater question than civil service, a greater 
question than Mormonism or Chinese emigration, a greater 
question than the system of " American protection," a 
greater question than helping the Democrats in. To the 
wage-worker I commend the words of Mr. Price. 

But James G. Blaine touched another Republican key- 
note when he landed in New York. He said: 



56 Solid Shot. 

There is no need to make any laws to protect capital. Capital always 
takes care of itself and gets a full share; but there are laws that can ele- 
vate the condition of the laboring man and there are laws that can degrade 
him, and the Republican party has stood for twenty-five years, and it will 
stand, I believe, with the blessings of God and the will of the American 
people, twenty-five years more, upholding and maintaining the laboring 
man. ******** 

Now, I do not intend to discuss the tariff; for of all the 
humbugs in the world it is the greatest. I only want to 
show my Republican and Democratic friends that a tariff, 
high or low, is a settlement of nothing. The tariff has 
always been sent to the front whenever a moral issue has 
come before the people. Now, if capital does not need 
protection, tell me what laws have been passed in the last 
twenty-five years that have degraded the laboring man ; 
tell me what laws have been passed that have caused fifty 
strikes within the last twenty-five years and fifty lockouts 
to where there were none in the twenty- five years before 
the Republican party got into power; tell me of a strike 
or a lockout before 1860. Tell us, Mr. Blaine, what you 
mean by " there are laws that can degrade him." You 
have had the power for twenty-five years, or a check on 
the law-making power. Point out a law. We have heard 
enough of glittering generalities. Ii you do not, let me 
point them out: The revenue law that says a man can 
start a dram-shop by every factory, if the keeper will pay 
Uncle Sam $25, and then watch the laborer as he comes 
along with his week's earnings and decoy him into a 
saloon and poison his body and steal his money and send 
him home a degraded^ drunken sot, is a degrading law. 
That, Mr. Blaine, is one of the laws that degrades labor, 
and your vote helped to pass it, and your hand helped to 
pen it, and years ago in your bid for the presidency you 
offered to divide out the revenue derived from this de- 
grading law and business with the States in the efforts to 
fasten this degrading law on the United States forever. 

The hue and cry of protection is not a new one. When 



Tariff and Trusts. 57 

the abolitionists wanted to elect Birney and Lemoyne, 
Henry Clay came forth with American protection, and 
every four years this same cry has been raised. McKinley, 
the Ohio champion, went all the way to Atlanta, Georgia, 
to instruct the natives in the doctrine of " American pro- 
tection." I have his speech in full, printed in the Com- 
mercial-Gazette. Listen: 

It is alleged as a serious objection to protective duties, that the tax, 
whatever it may be, increases the cost of the foreign as well as the domes- 
tic product to the extent of such tax or duty, and that it is wholly paid by 
the consumer. This objection would be worthy of serious consideration if 
it were true, but, as has been demonstrated over and over again, it is 
without foundation in fact. Wherever the foreign product has successful 
competition at home the duty is rarely paid by the consumer. It is paid 
from the profits of the manufacturer, or divided between him and the 
merchant, or the importer, and diminishes their profits to that extent. 
Duty or no duty, without home competition the consumer would fare worse 
than he fares now. There is not in the long line of -staple products con- 
sumed by the people a single one which has not been cheapened by com- 
petition at home, made possible by protective duties. 

Now, who import goods from foreign countries? Citi- 
zens of America. Mr. McKinley says the duty is sel- 
dom paid by the consumer; it is paid from the profits 
of the manufacturer. And yet the same speech main- 
tains that successful competition cheapens the article. 
If the cost of Bessemer steel in Europe or England is 
$17.00 per ton there, and $31.00 to $32.00 per ton here, 
how does the tariff cheapen the American manufac- 
ture? Mr. McKinley says it is paid out of the profits 
of the manufacturer, or divided between him and the 
merchant or the importer, and diminishes their profits 
to that extent. Thus, the manufacturer of steel rails in 
England says to the merchant or American importer: 
" I'll sell you these rails at $17.00 per ton. The tariff is 
$17.00 ; now I will divide this with you. Here is my ton 
of steel rails at $17.00, what it cost me, and I will give 
you $8.50 for taking my rails. I want to burst up the 
United States in the business of steel rail making. So 



58 Solid Shot. 

you see, you can sell these rails in America for $25.50. 
The ships will carry them over as ballast for nothing. Or, 
to make it plain, you have my rails for $8.50 a ton, and 
you pay all the tariff and sell them for $25.50 per ton, and 
we will bankrupt America, and all the laborers will have 
to work for nothing and board themselves." Brethren, 
in the latter case, the tariff is added to the article, and 
the man who buys the rails pays the tariff. In the first 
case he pays the same price for the rail, but only half the 
tariff is added, and this diminishes the profits to that ex- 
tent. Bosh. 

What does the purchaser pay when he buys the Ameri- 
can manufactured steel rail? Thirty- one dollars a ton. 
Enough tariff is added to keep out the $25.50 a ton rail, 
and the purchaser pays almost all the tariff to the Ameri- 
can manufacturer, and the laborer does not get a penny 
more, for the manufacturer imports the pauper labor of 
Europe to make his $31.00 a ton rails, and the American 
laborer strikes, because he comes into competition, not 
with the English manufactured steel rail, but the Euro- 
pean imported pauper labor. 

Tariff is a humbug, a fraud. To show you that this is 
true, I have only to quote from Ben Butterworth's speech 
at Cleveland. Here it is in the Cleveland Leader of the 
27th of September : 

The pearl-button and hat factories of Newark, New Jersey, are closed 
and the children go supperless to bed. This is caused by the competition 
of the pearl colonies of Austria. We get cheap buttons, but my country- 
men are walking the streets of Newark selling bananas in order to keep 
eoul and body together. Is this protection to American industries and 
American workmen ? My old friend Thurman says that the tarifi increases 
the cost to the consumer. The smallest boy in the audience known that is 
not so. Protection hammers down prices, for it increases competition and 
multiplies the ^number of workshops. Our industries are multiplied and 
they are all locked together for our common good. * * There are 
no unprotected industries in America. Protection reaches everywhere. 

If there are no unprotected industries, my friends, what 
is the matter with the pearl button and hat factories of 



Tariff and Trusts. 59 

New Jersey? Or did protection hammer prices down so 
that the factory had to close and the employes starve? 

Either Ben. Butterworth is wrong or protected industries 
cannot survive the hammering down prices which he says 
tariff produces. What is tariff for unless it prevents 
competition? Who made the tariff under which the pearl 
button and hat factories of Newark died? If there are 
no unprotected industries in America and all are linked 
together, how in the name of common sense do you 
account for the starvation of laborers in the New England 
and Eastern States? Could revenue tariff do any worse? 
I am not advocating a revenue tariff either. I want no 
tariff that does not protect labor. It was not labor that 
went down ; it was factories. Labor is still left, and a 
Republican protective tariff, according to Ben. Butter- 
worth, hammered down prices so that factories closed and 
laborers are walking the streets and starving in Newark. 
New Jersey. Try the Prohibition plan and there will be 
no starving laborers in New Jersey or elsewhere. This 
is not the first time I have heard of starvation and 
wretchedness under the blessings of protective tariff. 

In the Forum for September, '88, page 59, James Parlin 
says, in speaking of New England : 

We may say of many of the operatives in them that, from one week's 
end to the other, they scarcely hear one pleasant sound, scarcely taste one 
morsel of agreeable food. They hold their lives on conditions which forbid 
honest joy, innocent mirth, and beneficial communion of spirit with fellow 
beings. The men rarely see a woman who is not worn, defaced,, and dis- 
figured by excessive labor, who presents or can present to the male of her 
species the charm which nature intended to be the inspiration and the re- 
ward of life. There is just one thing which can give a brief exhilaration 
to persons living in circumstances so false, unnecessary, and unnatural, 
and this is strong drink. Hence we hear, and truly hear, that the rum- 
seller controls the politics of the place. 

New England is protected by the tariff, " and all the 
industries are linked together and protection reaches 
everywhere." And this is a New England picture under 
the protective system. Give prohibition a chance, and if we 



60 Solid Shot. 

do not change this squalor, this poverty and wretchedness 
by wiping out the dram shops and protecting the laborer 
and his wife and daughter and boy from New England 
rum, then we'll hand back the government to the protec- 
tion and debauchery of the Republican or Democratic 
party. 

The tariff is a humbug. The Republican party is not 
agreed on it. The Democratic party is not agreed on it. 
Both parties are for protection, both are for free trade. 
Every article that comes in free is just that much free 
trade. Both parties are in favor of a free list. The Old 
Roman hied away up to Port Huron to tell them what he 
knew about the tariff, and like McKinley, he took a decade 
and showed how land had appreciated and personal 
property had accumulated. Both claimed the work of 
God, in multiplying population and helping the country 
with crops and live stock, as the result of protection and 
the work of reduction. 

Mr. Grant said, December 5, 1870, in his message: 

With the revenue stamps, dispensed by the postmasters in every com- 
munity, a tax upon liquors of all sorts and tobacco in all its forms, and by 
a w ise adjustment of the tariff which will put a tax only on those articles 
which we could dispense with, known as luxuries, and those which we 
use more of than we produce, revenue enough may be raised, after a few 
years of peace and consequent reduction of indebtedness, to fulfill all our 
obligations; a further reduction of expense in addition to a reduction of 
interest and per cent, may be relied on to make this practical. Revenue 
reform, if it means this, has my hearty support. 

At this time monoply had not taken control of the 
country, and the Republican leaders did not know where 
they would land, hence the Indianapolis Journal, a strong 
Grant paper then, and now the especial champion of Ben. 
Harrison, says: 

The prime object of the tariff is to put money into the treasury. This 
can not be done without putting money into the pockets of some classes of 
manufacturers. That this is so is unfortunate, and all that remains to be 
done is to so discriminate in fixing the tariff duties as to raise the greatest 
amount of revenue at the least possible expense to the people. 



Tariff and Trusts. 61 

Now the Journal is whooping up the boys in favor of 
the highest kind of a tariff for the manufacturers, not 
because the paper has undergone a change, but because 
it imagines this yell for protection will win the postoflices 
and hold the old voters in the party and away from 
prohibition, the real issue. The same paper in the same 
article says: 

The salt tariff is a flagrant instance of bad legislation, and we have 
never yet heard of a man not directly interested in the manufacture of salt 
who had the cheek to defend it. 

How doctors differ. Mills is in favor of free salt, and 
taxed whisky and tobacco. 

Gen. Grant, in his message of 1875, once more recom- 
mended the restoration of the duties on tea and coffee, 
and added: 

With this addition to the revenue, many duties now-collected, and which 
give but an insignificant return for the cost of collection, might be remitted 
and to the direct advantage ot consumers at home. I would mention those 
articles which enter into manufactures of all sorts. All duty paid upon 
such articles goes directly to the cost of the article when manufactured 
here and must be paid for by the consumer. These duties not only come 
from the consumer at home, but act as a protection to foreign manufactur- 
ers of the same completed articles in our own and distant markets. 

Gen. Grant, in his message of 1874, urged a readjust- 
ment of the tariff u so as to increase the revenue and at 
the same time decrease the number of articles on which 
duties are levied." Said Eugene Hale: 

Salt. I believe this article should go on the free list; that the monopoly 
which has obtained heretofore for the Onondaga Salt Works * . * * 
ought to cease. 

If this is not free trade I do not understand it. But 
here is a whole dose. Said James G. Blaine : 

During the entire war, when we were seeking everything on earth out of 
which taxation could be wrung, it never entered into the conception of 
Congress to tax breadstuff's— never. * * Neither breadstufts 

nor lumber ever became the subject of one penny of taxation. Undoubt- 
edly the inequalities in the wages of English and American operatives are 
more than equalized by the greater efficiency of the latter and their longer 
hours of labor. 



62 Solid Shot. 

Where is General Alger and his lumber tariff ? 
General John A. Logan, April, 1870, said : 

"When a gentleman stands upon this floor and tells me that this high, 
this extraordinarily high tariff is for the protection of the laboring man, 
I tell him that I do not understand how he can possibly substantiate such 
a theory. 

I want you tariff racket fellows to take in this utterance 
of General Logan, and after you have digested it, tell me 
what condition of the laboring man the tariff remedies. 
God bless you, my friends, if you will knock daylight out 
of the saloon, labor will flourish as it never did under any 
kind of a tariff. Mr. Garfield said ; 

I am for a protection which leads jto ultimate free trade. For nearly 
two years the wholesale price of American salt in Toronto, Canada, was 
a dollar lower per barrel than the same salt was selling for on the New 
York side of the lake. * * * Certainly, gentlemen will not want a duty 
continued that enables that thing to be done. 

If there is a bit of sense in all this tariff " hoodo," how 
is it that the leaders of the Eepublican party are all the 
other way. President Arthur, in his message ot 1882, 
said: 

A total abolition of excise taxes would almost inevitably prove a seri- 
ous if not an insurmountable obstacle to a thorough revision of the tariff 
and to any considerable reduction in import duties. The present tariff 
system is, in many respects, unjust. It makes unequal distributions, 
both of its burdens and its benefits. 

The Democrats say we must reduce the tariff, it is 
unjust. President Arthur said it was unjust. The truth 
is, neither party expects to settle the tariff, but both hold 
it up to keep both parties from losing voters by desertion 
to prohibition. 

Senator Sherman said in 1872: 

Such excessive protection not only ceases to diversify production, but 
forces labor into protected employments. 

And again, last January, he said: 

The tariff ought to be carefully revised with a view to correct any 
inequalities or incongruities that have grown out of .the change of values 
since the passage of the act of 1883. 



Tariff and Trusts. 63 

But, my friends. I want to call your attention to what 
is said by the Senator of Kansas. John J. Ingalls. He 
says of the tariff system, this boasted American protective 
system : 

We are on the verge of an impending revolution. * * * On one side 
is capital * * * enriched by domestic levy and foreign commerce. 
* * * On the other is labor, asking for employment, striving to develop 
domestic industries, battling with the forces of Nature, * * * reso- 
lutely determined to overthrow a system under which the rich are growing 
richer and the poor are growing poorer. 

And with this let me add an adjudication of the whole 
subject by Justice Miller of the Supreme Court: 

To lay with one hand the power of the Government on the property of 
the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to 
aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a 
robbery because it is done under the forms of law, and is called taxation. 

Even Bro. McKinley lets in light. He said in 1882: 

The free list might be enlarged without affecting injuriously a single 
American interest. 

Senator Dawes adds his testimony : 

No man upon this floor shall be before me in condemnation of these 
organizations — Trusts. I do not hesitate for one moment to assert that 
the most serious menace to the Republican institutions in this country 
will be found in the power and influence of aggregated capital and the 
pretentious influence of overgrown wealth, and I am not alone upon this 
floor in the conviction that, unless they are speedily throttled, they will 
have upon the throat of the Republic so firm a grip that nothing short of 
revolution will compel them to relax their hold. This is strong language, 
but I mean every word of it. 

The tariff which protectionists love is the parent of 
trusts and combinations. John Sherman also said: 

It is certain that where these combinations grow out of revenue laws, 
as the sugar trust, which is one of the most dangerous and wrongful 
trusts ever organized in this country, the trust can certainly be reached 
by the operation of our revenue laws. 

But Blaine, after he had landed his thirty-two trunks 
full of manufactured English and foreign articles, while 
the guest of the greatest monopolist of America, Carnegie, 
jumped from the gang-plank onto the New York pier and 
blew the Republican fog horn thus: 



64 Solid Shot. 

The point which I wish to impress upon you is that trusts are not the 
outgrowth nor in any way the incident of the protective policy, as the 
President charges; that a protective policy no more breeds what he 
considers the pestilence of trusts than does the veriest free trade country 
in the world — which is England. 

You see, my friends, somebody is wrong. Is it Blaine, 
Sherman or Butterworth, or the Chicago Tribune? The 
Tribune is a leading Republican metropolitan paper, and 
it comes back at Mr. Blaine like an avalanche. Listen: 

Mr. Blaine's view is certainly a flippant one, to call it by no harsher 
name. The illegal combinations of producers to kill off competition and 
fleece consumers are certainly public. Congress has recognized them as 
such by passing legislation heretofore in their interests, and its members 
are now recognizing them again by discussing legislation which will 
relax their hold upon the people and choke them off from their huge profit. 
The courts have recognized them as public by entertaining proceedings 
against the oil trust and the sugar trust. The law recognizes them as 
public under the broad term of forestalling and fixing penalties for con- 
spiracy to suppress competition and dominate prices. If the sugar trust, 
for instance, is a purely private affair, why are its agents haunting the 
lobby in Washington to influence public legislation in their interests ? 

If Mr. Blaine is correct in his assertion that they are " private affairs " 
with which the government has no right to interfere, then most certainly 
the government has no right to bolster them up and befriend them, and 
should step down and out from its partnership by withdrawing its tariff 
protection. In further defending and apologizing for trusts, Mr. Blaine 
contends that the tariff has nothing to do with them, and that free trade 
England is as full of trusts as high tariff America. To sustain his point, 
he recites a coffin trust in the former country. This is another instance of 
flippant treatment of the subject. 

So long as excessive duties are maintained, these trade rings will be 
enabled to bleed the public. Reduce these duties to a decent, reasonable 
figure and they will be smashed. Mr. Blaine will not help the prospects 
of the party by appearing as the advocate of trusts, which the party plat- 
form has specifically and unmistakably condemned. He can say much 
that is interesting and profitable as to tariff and wages questions, but he 
should be warned in time not to make the error of apologizing for trust 
monopolies or whistling them down the wind as of no consequence. 

Do you not see, my "Republican friends, this whole tariff 
yell is only for the purpose of holding you to the Repub- 
lican party this one more time? The cry of free trade is 
to divert you from the only National issue, prohibition of 
the liquor traffic. The Chicago Tribune is the leading 



Tariff and Trusts. 65 

Eepublican paper of the West, and here is what it says of 
the free trade hullabaloo : 

The yell of free trade constitutes the burden of the arguments which the 
advocates of the existing war tariff and the monopolies protected by it 
offer in reply to those who are in favor of tariff reform. Any one who 
proposes to make a reduction of the tariff in the slightest degree is stig- 
matized a "free trader," and with this persistent and senseless clamor 
they expect to delude and scare the people. The latter, however, will not 
be deceived by the free trade yell. There are no free traders in this 
country except Henry George and a little handful of extremists whose 
doctrines are equally cranky and impracticable. 

The yell of free trade will have no effect in deluding the people or 
intimidating the workers in the cause of tariff" revision. They are not 
children to be scared by bogies. Nor will the ultra-protectionists and 
trust monopoly advocates succeed in making any issu e as between protec- 
tion and free trade. All the clamor they can make upon their war tarifl 
tomtoms, accompanied by their free trade yells, will pass away as a mere 
noise. It still remains for them to show that these enormous war taxes 
are necessary, and that the reduction demanded by tariff reformers can 
not be made, and yet leave the tariff high enough to answer all purposes 
of moderate protection. Until they can show this, they are wasting their 
own breath and the patience of the people with their free trade yelling. 

I have been thus particular, not that the tariff is an 
issue, or that it can ever settle anything, but to show you 
that both of the old parties keep up the tariff cry because 
they fear prohibition. As the Bar, of New York, the 
most influential liquor organ, says: "Keep the tariff 
before the people as it will keep them busy and there 
will be no time to think of prohibition. " 

The Prohibition party does not enter into this tariff 
fight, but we cannot remain silent and allow a tissue of 
falsehood to be sent broadcast over the country for the 
purpose of drawing attention from the real issue without 
showing to the people that it is not an issue, but merely a 
pretext to blind them. Neither do we apologize for either 
party or candidate. I want protection, but not for capital. 
If a million of dollars can not take care of itself, let it 
come to me and I will care for it. I want labor protected. 
So does the Prohibition party. Protect labor by compell- 
ing the mill men to divide the profit which protection gives 



66 Solid Shot. 

them, with the men who burn out their eyeballs and 
blister their faces at puddling furnaces, and close the gates 
to the importation of foreign pauper labor, and strike from 
the face of the earth the infernal saloon in which he has 
heretofore squandered the money that ought to have gone 
to his wife and children, or for bread and clothes, and you 
have solved the question of American protection. The 
Prohibition party not only wants to protect the laborer 
from competition with foreign pauper labor, and is there- 
fore opposed to making America a dumping ground for 
the lazzaroni and Anarchists and Communists of the old 
countries, but we propose to save the laboring man from 
competition with American pauper labor by closing the 
two hundred thousand pauper labor factories of America, 
the cursed saloons. 

The Ohio State Journal in its frantic efforts on the tariff, 
a few weeks ago, said: 

The wool growers of Ohio have lost ten cents per pound on wool on 
account of the tariff agitation, making a total loss in the State of 
$26,000,000. 

This stupidity and ignorance is the stock in trade that 
is to do service in keeping Republicans in line and 
prevent men from hearing and embracing the truth of 
prohibition. A gentleman said to me up in Jefferson 
county, where the sheep culture is the principal business, 
" The agitation of the Mills bill sent wool down ten cents 
a pound, and wool was only worth twenty cents per 
pound." I said: " What is it worth now?" " He answered, 
" Thirty-two cents a pound." I then said, " If the Mills 
bill run it down ten cents, what run it up twelve cents 
per pound?" " The fact," said he, " that the Mills bill can 
not pass the Senate." u Did you not know that when 
wool was going down?" He never did answer. 

But let us see how much truth there is in the statement 
of the Ohio State Journal about the loss of $26,000,000. 
The statistics of Ohio for 1887 show that the wool clip for 



Tariff and Trusts. 67 

that year was 18,883,814 pounds ; that the number of sheep 
for 1887 was 4,105,177, and that 150,000 were killed by dogs 
or died from disease. I suppose the Mills bill gave them 
the loot rot and set the dogs on them. But I'll not deduct 
the dead sheep ; count them kicking. The entire clip at 
20 cents a pound was worth $3,777,762.80. The sheep at 
$5 per head, $20,525,885. Added clip and sheep, $24,302,- 
647.80. But the Journal says you lost $26,000,000. So 
you see you lost all your wool and all your sheep and 
$1,697,352.20 besides. 

You see this stuff is not all wool and a yard wide. 
There is something else there but wool. Let us quit lying. 
" Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth 
with his neighbor: for we are members one of another." 

Brethren, I do not care a fig for the tariff, you never 
settled any question by the tariff — not - even the tariff. 
But, say these gentlemen, if we do not have a tariff on 
wool we will lose our sheep. My friends, you can no 
more increase your flocks of sheep by a tariff on blankets 
than you can increase the crop of dogs by a tariff on 
bologna sausage. 

You might just as well tax cheese to keep the skippers 
out of it as to tax raw material and open the doors to for- 
eign pauper labor, and expect thereby to enhance domes- 
tic wages. Tariff will not keep out foreign labor as long 
as capitalists can enter the market and buy it where it is 
cheapest, and t hat they will do as long as America is the 
dumping ground for the criminal classes and paupers of the 
Old World. As well try to keep out the Egyptian locusts 
by taxing vegetables and hay, as to prevent competition 
with pauper labor by taxing manufactured goods, espe- 
dally when our doors are open to the pauper labor class, 
and especially is this so with a liquor traffic that wastes 
$900,000,000 annually, manufactures 100,000 drunkards for 
hell every year, makes 600,000 paupers annually, and with 
a public dumping ground for the vicious class of the world, 



68 Solid Shot. 

all of which is brought about under the highest protective 
system ever adopted. It won't work. The only way to 
change this is to make known to the world that America 
is for Americans and men with American sentiments. 
American soil is not to be laid off in beer gardens and 
gambling hells, or public parks for Anarchists to celebrate 
the overthrow of order and the destruction of the Sabbath. 
Foreigners who are hunting homes, a place to worship 
God according to the dictates of conscience, are welcome. 
But the thugs, anarchists and Herr Mosts are notified that 
it is no further back to fatherland than from there to 
Castle Garden. This is a Christian land. We intend to 
down the saloon and gambling hells and turn the gale and 
tide oceanwards, and send adrift all who set our laws at 
defiance, and prohibit the landing on our shores of any 
mouthings or criminals. The line upon which we propose to 
administer our government is epitomized as follows: " No 
sectionalism in statesmanship." li No color in politics." 
"No sex in the franchise." Here we stand now and 
forever. Our enemies have formulated their ultimatum : 
"No religion in politics." "No morals in statesmanship." 
"No womanhood at the ballot." And on this they will go 
down in utter disgrace and defeat. 

Brethren, the hour is approaching when we will tuck 
the old parties in their little beds. Let us move forward. 
True Christian fortitude is needed. Prohibition is stronger 
than ever before. Manfully are our forces marching. All 
along the beach the tide is ebbing and flowing ; billow 
over billow mounts higher and higher, and the Prohibi- 
tion ship rides majestically evermore. 

'Tis weary watching wave on wave, 

And yet the tide heaves onward ; 
We build like corals, grain on grain, 

But on a pathway sunward. 
We are beaten back in many a fray, 

But newer strength we borrow ; 
And where the van-guard rests to-day 

The rear shall camp to-morrow. 



THE RUM POWER, 



ITS GROWTH IN SOCIETY AND IN POLITICS. 



SPEECH BY REV. J. B. HELWIG, D. D. 



Next to the institution of Christianity itself, and insep- 
arably connected with it, must be regarded with favor an 
organization the mission of which is the annihilation of 
that which is the overshadowing vice and crime of the 
nations of the earth. The grandeur of the truth which it 
represents, the strength and the extent of the evils with 
which it contends, the sublime results of the victory which 
it will accomplish in the end — these will give this temper- 
ance reform of the closing years of the nineteenth century 
a place side by side with the noblest moral achievements 
ever accomplished for the human family upon the earth. 

No less important or commanding than that is the 
estimate which we would put upon the objects which are 
to be secured by the moral and the political organization 
of the Prohibition party. With that estimate as the 
never failing truth of inspiration in this cause, its success 
is assured. 

From my inmost soul I honor that noble thirteen who 
were the original founders of the party of prohibition in 
Ohio, who through faith have wrought righteousness, 
obtained the promises, and who will yet subdue kingdoms. 
In their annual meetings the thirteen are not as lonesome 
as they used to be. The congregation of their friends is 
continually growing larger, although some of us were 
rather slow coming in out of the vestibule of the old 
p arties. 



70 Solid Shot, 

We call the work in which we are engaged a reform. 
And such it is — an imperative reform also. But what is a 
reform in the truest sense of the word? The meaning of 
a reform is the right of self-assertion on the part of the 
truth. It is the truth demanding what is due to itself at 
the hands of the people. It is the struggle of a great 
principle into constant and practical recognition, not into 
forced, but into willing acknowledgment and ready and 
uniform application on the part of the people everywhere. 
That is a reformation, and for that reason also are the 
questions involved, pro and con, in every true reformation 
never settled until they are settled right. The truth 
involved will never allow them to be settled in any other 
manner. And in this reform the party for the entire 
prohibition of the manufacture and traffic in strong drink 
as a beverage is in the possession of the truth which has 
the right to demand recognition, public acknowledgment 
and enforcement at the hands of the people And hence 
also will the party for the enforcement of that truth and 
principle have the strong staying qualities that will keep 
it in the field and in the fight until the victory is won, 
and on its own line of operation. 

In common parlance— this party has no other purpose 
than to give the rum power of this country to understand 
that it also means business — it means an aggressive war 
fare upon the traffic in strong drink, and it does not 
propose to stand around with its hands in its pockets in 
doing what it has undertaken to do ; and what we believe 
also God intends that it shall do ; and not only for this 
land, but as an inspiration, a beacon-light for all lands. 

And in this matter there is no stopping place until we 
have come to the last fire in the last brewery and distillery 
and have put that out; until we have come to the last 
saloon and have shut that up. Then with a political party 
organization in power that will at all times and in all 
places maintain and enforce the laws of the country, then 



The Bum Power. 71 

only have we come to the stopping place in this matter.. 
And the vice and the crime of the traffic in strong drink 
we believe will never be destroyed in any other manner. 

In a country where men are so largely absorbed in the 
material and business affairs of the world, there never has 
been and we do not believe that there ever will be the 
accomplishment of any great moral or political reform 
without an organization for that purpose. 

Is it not a notorious fact that there were no other laws 
on our statute books that were practically such dead-letter 
laws as were the laws against the traffic in strong drink? 
And yet the statutes were there. But if a political organ- 
ization had been effected an hundred years ago, yea, fifty 
years ago, such as there now is on this subject, who 
believes that we would still have 200,000 saloons in this 
country? Who believes that if there had been an organ- 
ization specially for the overthrow of the traffic in strong 
drink during that time, we would still be expending every 
year five times as much for that traffic as the value of all 
the church property of the country? Every year expend- 
ing eighteen times as much as the cost of public education? 
One hundred and fifty times as much as is annually paid 
to the clergymen of the United States, and one hundred 
and eighty times as much every year as is paid by the 
whole world for the cause of missions? Had there been 
such an organization as this during the past half century, 
who believes that we would still be burying 60,000 of our 
fellow men annually in drunkards' graves, whilst there is 
a steadily moving column of at least 300,000 more follow- 
ing hard after these? Who believes that had there been 
such an organization we would still be granting to one 
man, for a few hundred dollars at most, the privilege of 
selling strong drink, and then pay from $3,000 to $5,000 to 
convict and punish another man for becoming a criminal 
through the influence of strong drink which the first man 
sold him? Who believes that? Who now believes that 



72 Solid Shot 

all this and much more of evil and injury and sorrow and 
want and woe would still be transpiring in what we call 
this Christian land, and hard by so many Christian homes, 
had there been an organization such as that of the Prohi- 
bition party, having for its fixed and unalterable purpose 
the overthrow and the annihilation of this monster evil— 
the awful destroyer of the human family, the curse and 
crime of the nineteenth century? And we do not believe 
that the traffic in strong drink will ever be destroyed ex- 
cept through an organization especially for that purpose* 
That traffic itself is an organization, and outside of per- 
dition there is nothing more firmly organized and nothing 
more artfully managed than are the beer and the whisky 
interests of this country. 

And in addition to its organization the traffic in intoxi- 
cating liquors has also always been supported by three 
strong pillars, namely, the world, the flesh and the devil. 
The world, because of its greed for gain ; the flesh because 
of its depraved appetites, and the devil as the constant 
source of the ingenuity and inspiration of that traffic. 
Now that may be regarded as severe language. But I 
challenge any one to tell me what in all the range of 
business or any of the affairs of the world causes as much 
sin in its thousand forms as does the traffic in strong drink. 
And this, therefore, is a question also into which not 
politics merely, but into which the Christian conscience 
must enter as well. And there may be sentiment on this 
subject that will enact laws accordingly. But how many 
laws on this subject are enacted with no intention of 
enforcing them? 

Then the moral conviction is often wanting and the politi- 
cal fear comes also when the law is to be executed. There 
are places where it seems as if the officer of the law would 
himself almost be willing to be executed, and thereby 
avoid the execution of the statute against those who are 
engaged in the traffic of strong drink. 



The Rum Power. 73 

Public officials, as a rule, go down unless there is an or- 
ganized and a powerful public sentiment to support them, 
especially when they must execute the law against the 
traffic in strong drink. That is an organization, and organ- 
ization can only be met and successfully grappled with by 
organization. Every soldier knows that — organized Chris- 
tianity means that. It means combination for a special 
purpose. And that is just what is meant also by the Prohi- 
bition party — an organization, one of the special objects of 
which is the suppression and the entire overthrow of the 
traffic in strong drink. 

And here I wish to call attention to an error into which 
I believe a growing political organization may fall, and to 
its disappointment as well as its detriment. As a people, 
we are disposed to magnify our institutions of government 
simply as such, forgetting too often that institutions of 
government alone are not self- active, they are not self- 
executive, they have no perpetual motion in them or about 
them anywhere, and hence . mere constitutional amend- 
ments, good laws, statutory legislation of whatever char- 
acter, will not alone answer the purpose. But there must 
be a party — an organization — and an organization in power, 
in order that any and all these may be operative and ef- 
fective. When the Apostle Paul speaks of government as 
the ordinance of God, he also speaks of the ruler as the 
avenger to execute the wrath of the law upon them that 
do evil. The complete party organization, therefore, is 
not alone a party of principles, but it is a party of princi- 
ples with men of principle, and of moral courage also, to 
enforce those principles. 

And we are also a political organization to do for the 
people what the two old parties can not do. They are too 
largely dominated and controlled by the worst element of 
population in our American citizenship. But these give 
them their majorities. And the size of these majorities 
depends very largely upon the larger or the smaller num- 



74 Solid Shot. 

ber of voters that each of the parties can secure from that 
part of our voting population. The lager beer interest 
claims the control of from 50,000 to 75,000 voters in Ohio, 
and heretofore the anxiety on the part of the old parties 
has been as to who could secure the larger number of those 
ballots. And that is not an unfounded charge. The fact 
is not yet forgotten that at the last campaign meeting 
prior to the election of the present Governor of Ohio there 
were thirty six brewers and saloon-keepers who comprised 
the larger number of the (honorable) vice-presidents of 
that political meeting. In such a fact as that there is cer- 
tainly some indication of the source from which the 7,000 
majority of the Governor's own city came ; as well also as 
the source of the influence which helped to swell his majori- 
ties throughout the State. We repeat, therefore, that the 
two old political parties are too largely dominated and con- 
trolled by the saloon element to meet the moral and polit- 
ical necessities of the day. 

But whilst they are sometimes embarrassed by that ele- 
ment — but yet more wedded to it than embarrassed by it 
— the people of Ohio and of the nation at large cannot af 
ford to be hindered in their best forms of social develop- 
ment and moral and political progress for the sake of 
perpetuating their old political parties from generation to 
generation. There must be a change, and there will be a 
change. A living issue is up for settlement. Everywhere 
the watchword is being given, tl Strong drink is the foe." 
The saloon is filling the land with poverty, wretchedness 
and crime. 

And yet one of the old political parties makes no pre- 
tensions to temperance whatever as an organization. For- 
merly it did, but in these times of political depravity and 
corruption it has lost all conscience on that subject. The 
other professes to be the temperance party of this country, 
and yet prominent within its organization we find what is 
called an anti saloon party, and which is certainly an un- 



The Rum Power. 75 

necessary annex if the party itself is an anti- saloon party. 
Anti- saloon Republicans imply that there are saloon Re- 
publicans. 

" These parties tell us to disband our party organization 
and return to them again. When the saloon-keepers have 
once all withdrawn from the old parties, then there will be 
time enough for a conference with them on that subject, 
but not before. 

But what again is the party of prohibition endeavoring 
to do for the people of Ohio? It is endeavoring to do just 
what the constitutional convention of the State of 1851 
thought it had done, when in the formation of the consti- 
tution it said : 

The General Assembly shall not license traffic in intoxicating liquors, 
but may by law provide against evils resulting therefrom. 

With all the statutory law of the State prohibiting the 
traffic in strong drink, and added to that an anti- saloon 
clause in the constitution, the opinion of a large number of 
the wisest and the most intelligent members of that con- 
vention was that from the adoption of that clause in the 
proposed constitution there could and there would also be 
the prohibition of the traffic in strong drink throughout 
the whole extent of the State of Ohio. 

All through that convention the proposed anti-license 
clause was debated on that line. An amendment to it was 
introduced saying that " every person shall hereafter have 
full privilege to purchase, traffic, sell or dispose of any 
liquors in any quantity, either small or great, without leg- 
islative or other interference." But this amendment re- 
ceived but twelve votes out of ninety-three in the conven- 
tion then voting. 

I will not take your time to say what counties of our 
State were represented by these twelve votes, further than 
to say that the author of the amendment was from Auglaize 
and was called Sawyer. He, with Holmes and Remelin, 
of Hamilton, and nine others from various parts of the 



76 Solid Shot 

State, comprised the voters on a proposition that there 
should be free trade in the traffic in strong drink in Ohio, 
but which was defeated by a vote of eighty one out of 
ninety-three — the whole number of votes cast. 

And when the temperance people of the State voted to 
ratify the work of that convention by the adoption of the 
then new constitution, they did so with no other impres- 
sion than that the traffic in intoxicating liquors would 
thereby be prohibited throughout the entire State. But 
they have since learned, and we too have since learned, 
that the only thing that means prohibition, when you deal 
with the traffic in strong drink, is prohibition — prohibition, 
abolition, annihilation. Nothing short of that is prohibi- 
bition of the manufacture and the traffic in strong drink. 
Like the wounded tiger, that traffic will still gnash its 
teeth; like the broken-backed serpent, it will still hiss, and 
like the headless hornet, it will still sting. The only way 
to restrain the traffic in strong drink is to destroy it, and 
the only possible good thing it can do is to die. 

But what were the opinions expressed by some of the 
most wise and eminent members comprising that conven- 
tion with regard to the force and the scope of the anti- 
saloon clause of the new constitution ? The chairman of 
the temperance committee from which that anti-saloon 
clause came, Mr. McCormick, of Adams, although not in 
the fullest sympathy with it, yet in reply to the delegate 
from Erie, Mr. Taylor, who desired to ask if, in the opinion 
of Mr. McCormick, the legislature might, under that 
clause, prohibit the traffic in ardent spirits, replied, " I 
apprehend it would. The legislature may provide against 
the evils resulting therefrom." To which Mr. Taylor re- 
plied, " Resulting." Aud to which Mr. McCormick replied, 
" This would be construed to extend to prohibition. The 
limit and control of the legislature," he says, " will be as 
extensive as the evils to be limited and controlled ; and 
they are very great." He says the statistics of the State 



The Rum Power. ■ 77 

show that four fifths of the crime in the State is the result 
of intemperance. Such was the opinion of the chairman 
of the committee reporting the anti license c]ause of our 
constitution. But we quote again from the debates in that 
convention. Another says: 

What, then, would be the effect of inserting this clause in the constitu- 
tion? It would prohibit all granting of license in the future, and leave in 
the statute books all the existing prohibitory laws upon the subject, and 
thus so far as the constitution and laws could contribute to such a result, 
it would forever prohibit the traffic in intoxicating liquors. And could 
such a thing be done effectually it might be a desirable result. Could this 
report accomplish the purpose its friends say it will, every lover of his 
species ought to say amen to it. 

Such was the language of Mr. Thompson, of Shelby. 
Another said : 

No man who has seen the practical workings of the license system can 
deny that it does not work as we have reason to hope it would; but that it 
acts as a support to the power of intemperance. I lay it down as a broad 
principle that every man who retails spirituous liquors does so in defiance 
of morality and right. And there are an abundance of men who would not 
be willing to follow such a traffic, in the face of morality and right, were 
they not protected in it by law ; and it is to take away that protection that 
we desire to adopt this provision. 

Such were the remarks of Mr. Dorsey, from Miami. An- 
other said : 

Political economy then will demand the annihilation of such a traffic. 
But the influence of the traffic does not stop here. The men engaged in it 
are ministers of demoralization. The use of intoxicating drinks not only 
paralyzes labor; it saps public morals, engenders crime, peoples poor- 
houses and jails, ossifies the heart and petrifies the feelings. It becomes 
the source of much of our pauper and criminal expenses, and .produces 
woes and miseries which no line and plumb is long and heavy enough to 
sound and measure. 

Such were among the remarks of Mr. Nash, of Gallia. 
Another, and one of the most eminent in that honorable 
body, said: 

Mr. President, I expect to vote for this proposition upon the principle 
that it is wrong in the State to license any immoral practice. Public sen- 
timent in Ohio would not tolerate the legislature of the State in authoriz- 
ing a license to keep a gambling house, or a house of ill-fame, or a band oi 
counterfeiters. Yet there is really no diflerence in principle between legal- 



78 Solid Shot 

izing these employments and authorizing a man to keep a mere drinking 
house. All of them are wrong in morals, leading and tending to different 
conseqences, to be sure, but all pernicious to good order and the prosperity 
of society. The State ought to desist from the policy of levying a tax upon 
the appetite of man, when the gratification of that appetite is at the cost of 
the peace, prosperity and happiness of his household. 

Such were the remarks of Samson Mason, of Clark, one 
of the noblest men of Ohio, and in his generation of great 
men also. But once more. Another said: 

I have only to say in conclusion that I hope the sanction of law will be 
taken from this traffic, and that church and State, clergymen and politi- 
cians, will take this monster by the horns and grapple with it to the death. 

Such were the utterances of the Hon. Ben. Stanton, of 
Logan. In those days there were statesmen in Ohio, men 
at the head of our political affairs who did not believe that 
what was morally wrong was politically right, but men 
who believed with Charles Sumner that " politics is but 
the application of morals to public affairs;" and with 
George Washington, that "of all the dispositions and 
habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and 
morality are indispensable supports." But whilst such 
was the majority of the sentiment in the constitutional 
convention of Ohio in 1857, thirty-one years ago already, 
and whilst it was the impression also of the twenty 
thousand petitioners of that convention for a clause in 
the new constitution prohibiting the traffic in strong drink 
in Ohio, as also of all the temperance voters of the State 
that in the endorsement of the work of that convention 
they were adopting a constitution that would practically 
prohibit the traffic in strong drink, yet we know to what 
a small extent that fond hope was realized on the part of 
the friends of the anti-license clause ; when, instead of 
the prohibition of the traffic in strong drink, there was 
absolutely almost free whisky throughout the State. That 
fact is too well known to need even a single word further 
in explanation of it. Then shortly afterward, instead of 
the anti saloon agitation, there came the anti slavery 



The Rum Power. 79 

agitation, then the civil war, then the reconstruction 
measures and other matters of absorbing interest and 
importance to the people in general. Yet through all 
these years the agencies in the interests of strong drink 
were not idle. From year to year their traffic came steal- 
ing upon the people, and stealing also from the people, 
like a thief in the night. As the pestilence that walks in 
darkness and the destruction that wastes at noonday, so 
the traffic in strong drink marched steadily forward and 
with multiplied power. 

And then the traffic also assumed a new and a specious 
form, and even with pretense and plausible argument for 
the cause of temperance. Here we find the introduction 
of that falsehood, which has been one of the most potent 
means through which the rum power has extended its 
empire over the people of this country,, and that is that 
" beer drinking is comparatively harmless by the side of 
the consumption of other kinds of liquors." Here then 
was the origin of new woes for the people, and also the 
origin of that power and influence of the traffic in strong 
drink that will be the very last and very hardest to break. 
Then also, in the beginning of the year of the civil war, 
when the political mind of the nation, North and South, 
was upon but one subject, in the year 1862 there was 
organized the "United States Brewers' Association," and 
with the motto, " In union is strength " — an organization 
for the purpose of fostering the brewers' wing or interest 
in the traffic in strong drink. And here may also be 
marked the era of the American saloon. Here is the 
beginning of the guilt of the general government in 
making the lager beer crime national. In 1864 the chair 
man of the vVashington Agitation Committee reported 
almost daily correspondence with membeis of Congress, 
and nine different visits to Washington. " The brewing 
business in America," he says, " is still in its infancy and 
yet it has attained a magnitude beyond the conception 



80 Solid Shot. 

of persons not acquainted with the great consumption of 
malt liquors and the immense amount of capital invested 
in its manufacture." 

At the Fifth Brewers' Congress at Baltimore in 1865, 
Commissioner Wells, representing the government, said: 

I have come to hear, not to speak. At the same time I can assure the 
meeting that it is the desire of the government to be thoroughly informed 
of the requirements of the trade. And I will give information on all ques- 
tions, in order to bring about a cordial understanding between the govern- 
ment and the trade in general. 

At the Seventh Brewers' Congress at Chicago in 1867, 
the chairman said: 

Only by union in brotherly love will it be possible to guard against 
offensive laws and raise ourselves to be a large and widespread political 
power, and with confidence anticipate complete success in all our under- 
takings. 

Such was the boast of the national beer interest of this 
country already so many years ago, By union in 
brotherly love among themselves and with the aid of the 
government at Washington they did raise themselves to 
be a large and a widespread political power, also antici- 
pating complete success in all their undertakings. And 
may we not here add how blind temperance men have 
been, not to say what dupes, in voting all this time in the 
interests of the brewer and the saloon keeper and so 
enabling them to compass and to accomplish their designs 
upon an innocent and inoffending people ? 

At the Congress of Brewers, held in New York city in 
1872, its president said: 

In the affairs of our National Government the temperance party, 
although they have spared no exertion, have up to the present time met 
with poor success. 

Individually, where moral suasion would lift one man 
out of the gutter, the beer and whisky traffic would be 
instrumental in putting ten men into it. These were still 
the simple days of turf and grass in the treatment of the 
thief. But in that year of 1872 there was organized a 
national party that will yet pelt the life out of that thief 





JOHN B. HELWIG, OF OHIO 



The Rum Power. ' 81 

with the freeman's ballot, and which will come upon him 
with the crushing effect of so many stones ; a party also 
that is not being turned from its mission and its duty by 
the saloon sheet threat of fire and brimstone, clubs, pitch- 
forks and butcherknives, nor by the assassination of its 
members at the hands of the brewers. Here, too, will the 
blood of the martyrs be the seed of the party that will yet 
annihilate the curse and crime of the American saloon. 
Of that I have no doubt. God intends that it shall be so. 
And also in connection with the proceedings of the 
Brewers' Congress of the 3^ear 1872, in speaking of the 
Democratic party, the president of that congress said: 

The presidential election, which takes place this fall, may change the 
aspects of that party. At the Cincinnati convention they have placed at 
the head of their ticket Horace Greeley, a man whose antecedents will 
warrant him a pliant tool in the hands of the temperance people, and 
none of you gentlemen can support him. * * * It is necessary 
for you to make an issue at the election throughout the entire country. 
* * * Although I have belonged to the Democratic party ever since 
I had a vote, I would sooner vote the Republican ticket than cast my ballot 
for such a candidate. 

And there the issue was made. And there was also a 
transfer of no small portion of the brewers' and saloon- 
keepers' vote and influence to the Kepublican party ; and 
which doubtless also accounts for the comparatively small 
vote that was cast for Mr. Greeley. Then in that presi- 
dential year also was there incorporated into the platform 
of the Republican party that personal liberty resolution, 
in the interest of the saloon, and which has not yet been 
taken out of it. The resolution says : 

The Republican party proposes to respect the rights reserved by the 
people to themselves, as carefully as the powers delegated by them to the 
State and Federal Constitution. It disapproves of the resort to unconsti- 
tutional laws for the purpose of removing evils by interference with the 
rights not surrendered by the people either s to the State or the National 
government. 

The Supreme Court of the United States recently, how- 
ever, was of the opinion and also most emphatically 
vi 



82 Solid Shot. 

expressed that citizens of a State had reserved rights that 
could not be delegated to brewers and saloon-keepers at 
the option of a mere political party. 

But what further was the meaning of that personal lib- 
erty resolution that was incorporated into the National 
Republican platform of 1872, and which to this day 
practically remains there? Herman Raster, of Chicago, 
the author of the resolution, in a letter to a Mr. J. M. 
Miller, of Detroit, says: 

Dear Sir— In reply to yours of July 8th, I have to say that I have 
written the sixteenth resolution of the Philadelphia platform, and that it 
was adopted by the platform committee with the full and the explicit 
understanding that its purpose was the discountenancing of all so-called 
temperance (prohibitory) and Sunday laws. This purpose was meant to 
be expressed by those rights of the people which had not been delegated 
to either National or State government. It being assumed that the right 
to drink what one pleases (being responsible for the acts committed under 
influences of strong drink) and the right to look upon the day on which 
Christians have their prayer meetings as any other day, were among the 
rights not delegated by the people, but reserved to themselves. 

A party that adopts a resolution that means that, de- 
serves to die. Then he says: 

Whether this explanation of the meaning of the resolution will satisfy 
you or not, I do not know. But as you want to serve the cause of truth so 
do I, and what I have stated here in regard to the true meaning and intent 
of the sixteenth resolution of the Philadelphia platform, is the truth. 

Very respectfully yours, Herman Raster. 

How blind, not to say what fools, have well meaning and 
Christian and temperance people all over this land been 
in helping this National Brewers' Association to compass 
their designs upon the people of this republic. The author 
of this resolution says, " It being assumed that the right 
to drink what one pleases, and the right to look upon the 
day on which Christians have their prayer meetings as on 
any other day, are rights reserved," and so on. In the 
light of such declarations may also be discerned the dem 
agoguery of the politician and the candidate for office. 

Mr. Sherman, Ohio's candidate for the presidency at the 



The Rum Power. 83 

next Republican convention, said in a speech at Alliance 
in 1873: 

All parties, to be useful, must be founded upon the political ideas which 
affect the frame-work of our government, or the rights and immunities 
secured by law. 

What an echo that is of the Raster resolution ! Then 
still further he says: 

Questions based upon temperance, religion, morality, in all their multi- 
plied forms, ought not to be the basis of parties. 

Then also: 

Temperance parties and organizations of that kind are not in accord- 
ance with the spirit of our institutions. 

But personal liberty organizations and organizations in 
the interest of the manufacture and the traffic in intoxi- 
cating liquors, these we suppose Mr. .Sherman would 
consider in accordance with the spirit of our institutions. 
The demagoguery, not to say the immorality and the 
wickedness there is in such political treachery, is amazing. 
^Questions based upon temperance, religion, morality in 
their multiplied forms, ought not to be the basis of polit- 
ical parties," says Mr. Sherman. But if not, then accord- 
ing to Mr. Sherman also, parties may be based upon 
questions involving intemperance, irreligion, Sabbath 
desecration and immorality in their multiplied forms. 
And still more, the State must be based upon morality, 
but political parties in that State, according to Mr. 
Sherman^ should not be. That certainly is the logic of a 
saloonatic, for that is just what the saloon-keeper claims. 
And that is just the point to which the saloon-keeper has 
also brought the two old parties in their attitude and 
relation to his traffic. Their political existence now 
depends upon the dram shop. Take that away from 
either, and that party goes to the wall ; cut off the umbil- 
ical cord between the saloon and either one of the old 
parties, and that party will die. And hence, also, the 
tenderness, with which the old parties interfere with the 



84 Solid Shot. ■ 

saloon. And I repeat, therefore, that the question for the 
people of this country now to decide is, whether they can 
afford to continue the manufacture and the traffic in strong 
drink indefinitely in order to perpetuate the old parties, 
or whether it would not be the wiser course to pursue to 
let them all die together, and build up a party for this 
great country whose " god is not its belly," and whose 
glory is not the brewery, and whose way to power does not 
lie through the saloon. 

I would speak with less severe and more sparing terms, 
but I cannot do so when I know how the old political 
parties have cared for and encouraged and protected and 
strengthened by direct legislation, by constant political 
influence, an interest and industry, so called, a traffic, 
which is an enemy to the home, an enemy to the school^ 
an enemy to the State, an enemy to the church, an enemy 
to every conceivable element which is necessary to the 
prosperity and the happiness oi the people, both in this 
world and in the world to come. In consideration of the 
interests and the welfare of all these have I spoken too 
severely in this matter? Can any one censure such a 
course of legislation on the part of the old parties too 
severely? Whilst the old parties are tremendously and 
most eloquently wrought up upon protection or free trade, 
in wool, iron or other articles of manufacture, export or 
import, and which within itself is well enough, what is 
all that in comparison to the sin and the crime which is 
crying to heaven for vengeance because of the saloon 
debauchery of the children in the homes all over this 
land? But now go with me also and I will show you the 
homes that have been protected and enriched by that 
traffic which has been so well cared for by the old parties 
of this country. Every brick and board and shingle and 
nail in the house that covers those within has sent some 
soul down to a drunkard's grave and to a deeper and a 
ark er eternity beyond. Then also go within thejhouse 



The Rum Power. 85 

and there every department is adorned with the articles 
of luxury, value, taste and beauty, to be sure, but all these 
tell you in mute eloquence that they were purchased at 
the cost of immortal souls. In the soft and beautiful 
carpet upon which you tread you can see the crimson of a 
fathers blood and the lake white ground from", young 
men's bones. And in the still more delicate colors of the 
finish and the decorations of that house you can also see 
the ultra marine of children's blue eyes and the tear-drop 
of grief wrung from mothers' hearts. And the flexible 
springs of the chairs and the furniture that is found in 
that home tells you of the sinews of strong men's arms. 
That is the home that has been protected and enriched by 
the two old political parties of this country for a quarter 
of a century past. Here has been their inconsistency, not 
to say their unpardonable sin. 

But are there those again who will say those charges are 
too severe and not well founded ? Then I read again from 
the proceedings of the Brewers' Congress held in Wash- 
ington City in 1882. And it may be necessary to say that 
I do not mean the Brewers' Congress that met in the 
Capital building. There the president of the Brewers' 
Congress said: 

Our organization has passed its twenty-first year. Having attained its 
majority, it meets at the home of the mother of us all [the seat of our general 
government called the mother of the most wicked business on the face of 
the earth]. We meet at the house of the mother of us all. If we have had 
and still have to contend with unscrupulous foes, we have found thousands 
of reasonable men. 

Then he says: 

Those Senators aud Representatives in Congress who assisted the cause 
of true temperance by the enactment of liberal laws in regard to malt 
liquors from 1862 up to the present date, 1882, with whom I became ac- 
quainted, as president of the United States Brewers' Association, and later 
as the chairman of the committe on agitation at Washington, should be 
held in immortal memory by the brewers of this country and their descend- 
ants. If it had not been for their wise and liberal judgment, the brewing 
interests would now be in a crippled condition, and many of the breweries 
would now be extinct. 



86 Solid Shot. 

Such is the language of Mr. Fred Lauer, chairman of the 
agitation committee at Washington, in 1882. Is there any- 
more proof necessary with regard to the relation which the 
old parties have sustained to the Liquor League and their 
traffic in this country for a quarter of a century past? Then 
notice how the vote of the majorities in Congress have 
been toiled in the interests of this traffic by the place and 
power of single officials there. On the 19th of January, 
1885, a resolution was adopted in Congress by a vote of 142 
to 86 for the appointment of a committee to investigate the 
traffic in strong drink. What was the result of that vote? 
Mr. Carlisle, the Speaker of the House, in the appointment 
of a committee of nine in answer to that resolution, consti- 
tuted the committee of six who had voted against it and of 
three who had voted for it. And so the report of the next 
Brewers' Congress was : 

The committee stands, therefore, six to three in favor of personal liberty, 
and not less than two of its members are German Americans. 

The report further says : 

And for that you are under obligations to Speaker Carlisle and his and 
our friend, Colonel Morrison, of Illinois. 

But, not yet satisfied with the emoluments, the place, 
the political power and influence which the traffic in strong 
drink affords, nor yet willing to turn away from it because 
of the untold injury which the traffic inflicts now, since it 
has become a mighty power for evil in the nation, what 
method or policy do the old parties propose to pursue in 
dealing with it ? It is here. What are they going to do 
with it? It is here as a menace to the republic, and the 
mammoth vice and crime of the century. What are the 
old parties going to do with it \ It is theirs, not ours. It 
grew with their growth and it strengthened with their 
strength. Are they going to destroy it or are they not ? 
That is becoming the question with the people of this 
country. Everywhere they are asking that question and 
with an emphasis also never put upon it beiore. 



The Rum Power. 87 

But the old parties will not destroy the traffic in strong 
drink. Party salvation renders it necessary that they do 
not destroy it. And hence their policy now is to raise still 
more revenue from it, and so always continue it. On the 
one hand it is called license, on the other it is called taxa- 
tion. That is, the State shall, for a stipulated sum, either 
grant an indulgence for the commission of the crime in 
advance of the crime, which is license, or on the other 
hand it shall, for a stipulated sum, grant absolution from 
the crime after the crime has been committed, which is 
taxation. But both are granted for a price, and with the 
full knowledge on the part of the State of the consequences 
to society by the continuation of the traffic. And both 
methods simply mean an easy way to raise revenue from 
vice, but they do not destroy the vice that brings the rev- 
enue. If it is the object only to raise a revenue from the 
traffic in strong drink, then high license and taxation is 
one way of doing so. But such methods should not be 
called temperance measures. Let them be called simply 
a relief to the tax payer in the sense that the tax payer 
receives in return a part of what the saloon has cost him. 
And we believe it to be a mistaken view of this subject 
that if the tax were now taken off the saloon that we 
would again be obliged to have free whisky. That was so 
years ago, when other important questions absorbed the 
minds of the people, but we do not believe that it would 
long be so now, when this question is before the minds of 
the people of this country, and also as never before. Read 
the resolutions that conferences and synods and associa- 
tions of Christian bodies of every name have adopted 
against the traffic in strong drink, then tell me what is left 
to recommend it but the revenue it pays. 

But then is it not most singular also that when these 
Christian bodies have so described and so denounced that 
traffic in terms as strong as the English language can do so 
they will yet from v ear to year continue to vote for the 



88 Solid Shot 

political parties that have protected and developed it, and 
whose policy now is, by license and taxation, to fix it 
into the government and upon the people for an indefinite 
number of years to come. More and more is such voting 
on the part of professing Christians becoming harder to 
understand. Are they not honest in what they say about 
the traffic in strong drink ? We believe they are, but if so 
why will they not leave the political parties that will not 
leave the saloon ? What interest have they in perpetuat- 
ing the old parties in order that the saloons may also be 
perpetuated ? Have they not waited long enough in all 
reason for the old parties to do what ought to be done on 
this subject? But do they say that license and taxation 
do not continue the traffic? But the distillers and brewers 
tell them they do. And they know, because they know 
just what amount of strong drink is consumed. The pro- 
prietor of the Cedar Valley distillery, at Wooster, under 
date of February 2d, 1888, says : 

A good, well-regulated license, not to exceed $300 to $500, will not hurt 
the trade. We don't find the demand for liquor in Ohio any less than when 
there was no license. 

Then he says : 

High license does more to counteract prohibition fanaticism than any- 
thing else we can bring to bear. 

That is, high license fools temperance people better than 
anything else they can bring to bear. Then he says: 

If I had the framing of the law I would make it $100 to $500, according 
to location and the business done. The liquor-sellers are not in favor of 
the repeal of the law. Do not permit prohibition laws and think to have 
free trade under them. No prohibition laws in mine to fight. I don't want 
to operate as an outlaw. Respectfully, C. K. Bowman. 

There is a tax named more than twice as high as was 
put upon the retail trade under the Dow law, Ohio's won- 
derful temperance measure! and yet here comes a distiller 
who says: " We don't find the demand for liquor in Ohio 
any less than when there was no license.'' That is, any 
less than when there was no Dow law. Now what about 



The Rum Power. 89 

the boasted Dow law as a temperance measure ? But they 
still point us " with pride " to the Dow law. They tell us 
it closed 2,000 saloons in Ohio. Yes, but it still left 12,000 
open ; and it couldn't close fourteen saloons in Mr. Dow's 
own town of Bellefontaine ; a town that usually gives 
from 200 to 300 Republican majority. A temperance party* 
to be sure! Still we are told that it closed 2,000 saloons 
elsewhere. Yes, it did ; but it also opened 6,000 saloons 
on Sunday elsewhere. Is that why " we point with pride 
to the Dow law? 1 ' 

God blessed the Sabbath day, and the Ohio Legislature 
cursed it with the Dow law. God commanded that the 
Sabbath day should be kept holy, and the Legislature of 
Ohio decreed that that day might be prostituted to the 
lowest and the most wicked business on the earth, and 
that through the Dow law. And yet during all that time 
the Governor of Ohio was pointing "with pride to the 
Dow law." 

The practical atheism which prevails in much of our 
legislation is positively alarming. Moral considerations 
and God's positive commands on the subjects involved 
scarcely seem to be taken into account at all. Everything 
of that kind is now being determined and set aside by 
what men are pleased to call either business necessity 
or the demands of the popular sentiment of the day. 
And is there not therefore still a warning in that declara- 
tion oi the angel concerning the protection of the infant 
Redeemer. 

" They are dead that sought the young child's life ?" 

Sooner or later those nations will fail and fall, and 
themselves be doomed to destruction who endeavor to 
destroy the truth of God and the religion of Jesus Christ 
or the holy Sabbath day. 

But the Republican party now also points with pride to 
its progress on the subject of temperance, because it 
recently passed a law repealing the Sunday clause in the 



90 Solid Shot. 

Dow law. What progress has it made? Who put that 
Sunday clause into the Dow law? Are they airy further 
along now than when they put it there? For instance, a 
fellow goes into the saloon and gets drunk and falls down, 
then under the influence of the Prohibition party and the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union he sobers up and 
gets up. Then he says, u See what progress I am making. 
What a temperance party I am. Come and join me." 

Has the Sunday clause been taken out of the Dow law? 
Yes, it has. But who did it? Which of the two parties 
in the legislature says, " We did it?" Yea, more, which 
of the two parties dare say, " We did it." The paternity 
of that Sunday law reminds one of what the Bible say& 
about the genealogy of Melchisedec. The Democrats say 
the Republicans are responsible for the passage of the 
Owen law. And the Republicans say it was a Democratic 
trick. And I rather suppose it was. And it was a good 
one, too. The Commercial- Gazette was mad about it. It 
said that it wasn't the intention of the Republicans to 
take up the bill again, and I don't think it was. And the 
Republican journals all over the State also declared that 
their party was innocent of the passage of this Sunday 
law, and that they were not responsible for it. And I 
think they tell the truth ; I don't think they are responsi- 
ble for it, And more than that also, I don't think that 
either of the old parties want to be responsible for it. To 
say so would lose them the votes that come from the 
saloon. And yet they need those votes ; their majorities 
are made up of those votes. And the party that can get 
the largest number of those votes in Ohio also has the 
largest majority. But is it not a most pitiable spectacle 
to see two professedly great political parties higgling over 
a matter of that kind? 

That Sunday clause in the Dow law was the most infa- 
mous piece of legislation ever enacted by a Christian 
State. And yet now we have the sad spectacle of these 



The Rum Power. 91 

two old parties each denying that they repealed that law. 
After that tell me there is no necessity for another party 
in Ohio! Had it not been for the Prohibition party and 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Ohio, that 
infamous Sunday clause would still be in the Dow law — 
of that I have no doubt. 

But in the development which this country has given to 
the traffic in strong drink we have also encouraged a 
foreign emigration to our shores, and in many cases also a 
very undesirable emigration, and undesirable especially 
in view of its relation to the drink traffic. Take our direct 
annual drink bill— at least $900,000,000— and who are the 
head and front of that business in this country ? We have 
good authority for saying that 65 per cent, of our liquor 
dealers are foreign born, and so also 75 per cent, of our 
brewers. In proof of this foreign relation to the traffic 
in strong drink take the city of Philadelphia, where there 
is perhaps as low a per cent, of foreign population as in 
any of our larger American cities. Take the figures there, 
a few years ago, as an illustration. In. that city there were 
8,034 persons engaged in the rum traffic. And who were 
they? Two Chinamen, 2 Jews, 18 Italians, 140 Spaniards, 
265 negroes, 160 Welch, 285 French, 497 Scotch, 568 Eng- 
lish, 2,179 Germans, 3 041 Irish, and how many Americans 
— 205. There were 672 of unknown nationality, the sum 
total being 8,034. Of this number, 3,696 were females^ 
and out of the 3,696 all were foreigners but one. One 
American woman in the rum business. Thank the Lord, 
only one. But perhaps she has as much right to be there 
as an American brewer or saloon-keeper. But of that 
number there were 1,104 German women and 2,558 Irish 
women engaged in that traffic. And of the whole number 
of the 8,034 engaged in the liquor traffic of that city 6,418 
had been arrested for one crime or another at some time or 
another. Now that is a specimen of what we have in the 
this country. In the language of that traffic, "There is a sam 



92 Solid Shot. 

pie city." What do we think of it? And that is but one 
city. We are bound to look at such facts in this country. What 
do we think of them? Are we actually becoming a nation 
of foreign wholesale liquor sellers, of the foreign brewers, 
of foreign saloon-keepers, and then also of American and 
foreign beer drinkers and Sabbath desecrators. What was 
proven also in the trial of the anarchists in Chicago? 
This saloon, that saloon, the other saloon, the saloon 
figured constantly in that trial. The conspirators met in 
the saloon. The dynamite bomb was discussed in the 
saloon. Armed revolutionists were drilled above the 
saloon, under the saloon, in the rear of the saloon. And 
time and time again the witnesses said we went to such 
and such a saloon. 

And it has, therefore, also been truthfully said, there is 
no country under the sun in which there lurks so much 
treason, revolution and murder as there does in the 
saloons of this country. The saloon bar is the scaffold on 
which those things which are vital to the American 
Republic are being executed. And is there not also a 
vicious barbarism, a lapsed and a degraded civilization, 
found especially in our larger cities, and which did not 
exist a quarter of a century ago, and for which the saloon 
is almost wholly responsible? In the morning on which 
that fatal bullet was shot into the body of General Gar- 
field, Guiteau, the assassin, took a larger draught of liquor 
than usual. The saloon-keeper said to him, "Guiteau, 
you are drinking heavier this morning than usual." 
'• Yes," said Guiteau, " I have heavier work to do to-day 
than usual." Yes, he had the President of the United 
States to kill that day. 

A nation that licenses murder for pay must not be 
shocked at deeds of vice and violence, although they do 
occur in high places. Nations that foster a traffic that 
fattens the wild beasts of passion will also be devoured 
by the wild beast of national execution and execration. 



The Rum Power. 93 

In the political campaign of 1884, one thousand and four 
political caucuses and conventions were held in the saloons 
of New York city by the old parties. 

But still another injurious result has followed the en- 
couragement which this nation has given to the traffic in 
strong drink. And that is, that thereby we have put no 
small number of our own American workmen between an 
upper and a neither millstone 

Do you ask what these millstones are? The one is the 
American saloon, and the other is European pauper labor. 
And from one or the other of these, and in numerous cases 
from both, the American laborer and his family are having 
their very life ground out of them. And a nation can not 
long endure that. A nation that will not protect its honest 
labor against pauper pay, and that will not protect its ex- 
panding homes against the peril of the saloon, that nation 
will soon also hear its funeral bell. 

The party of the future for this great country must have 
specially three moral and political essentials: First, it 
must give sufficient material support to those who perform 
its necessary labor ; secondly, it must shield with moral 
protection those who comprise its many happy and its in- 
dispensable homes ; and then, above all and over all, it 
must have ever abiding faith in the God of the nations of 
the earth. 

And once more. The public conscience of the entire 
nation is becoming quickened on this subject as never 
before. As far as the curse is found, there also are the 
people taking up arms against it. Education, science and 
scripture are all arrayed against the demon of strong drink 
as never before. Everywhere is the seed of the woman 
bruising the head of the serpent of the still as never before. 
Everywhere is the Revelation Angel flying with a temper- 
ance gospel and also preaching it as never before. For 
these good omens in this great cause we thank God and 
take courage. The sky is everywhere set with them. And 



94 Solid Shot. 

these are God's instrumentalities for the destruction of 
this great evil in our land. We are engaged in his cause, 
and who can doubt that he also desires his people to ac- 
complish it for him? No reasonable man or woman can 
believe otherwise. And as God is God, and as sin is sin, 
and also sin against God, so will the last great curse and 
crime of the liquor tramc yet be overthrown. Then, with 
this great foe to all moral, and religious, and material in- 
terests forever destroyed, then as a nation of people we 
may go forward to a future of greatness to which our past 
is not to be compared. The proud and commanding posi- 
tion and the providential purpose and mission of this great 
nation should ever be kept before our minds. And these 
great facts, in connection with the perpetuity of our insti- 
tutions of religion and government, should constantly im- 
pel to high moral principle, to righteous political action, 
and the fulfillment of all the important duties with which 
the American citizen is morally charged. This being done, 
it can never be said u that the ocean was dug for the grave 
of the American republic; that the clouds were woven for 
its winding sheet ; that the mountains were reared for its 
tombstone, and that the winds were given to chant its 
funeral dirge/' But on the other hand, exalted by right- 
eousness, with Christianity in its politics, and with its 
politics also pure enough to be in its Christianity, and as 
in a Christian nation it also ought to be, then will our 
country live on and it will go forward also in all the ele- 
ments oi intellectual and moral greatness until the light 
of the stars upon our national standard shall blend their 
radiance with the light of the millennial morning and be 
lost in the full sunshine of the new heavens and the new 
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. 

My friends, in the interests of this cause let us all say, 
This one thing I do, and remembering that whilst all great 
reforms usually advance more slowly than their friends 
desire that they should, they nevertheless go forward 
much more rapidly than their enemies wish they would. 



HIGH LICENSE 



AS A TEMPERANCE MEASURE— MERELY A DEVICE TO 
PROTECT THE SALOON FROM AN OUT- 
RAGED PEOPLE. 



SPEECH BY R. S. THOMPSON. 



Legislation in regard to the saloon is always presented 
to the people as temperance legislation. 

A bill to tax or license the saloon is always spoken of — 
in public — as an act to restrict the drink traffic and regu- 
late the evils arising therefrom. 

No bills are ever introduced in the legislature with such 
labels as, k ' An act for the promotion of the business of 
drunkard making ;" " An act to encourage the consump- 
tion of strong drink;" "An act to enable saloons to attract 
more customers." Bills with such titles would be hooted 
out, and the member of the legislature who would intro- 
duce them would be retired to private life. 

The people of America are opposed to the saloon. If 
an honest poll were taken of the United States, and each 
one was required to answer positively and honestly the 
question: 

Would you like to have the whole liquor traffic blotted 
out, if it could be done? 

The answer would be in the affirmative in three cases 
out of four. 

The fact that the people are opposed to the saloon is 
evidenced by the methods adopted by the saloon in its 
defense. No campaign has ever been conducted on which 
the saloon men have gone upon the stump and openly 



96 Solid Shot, 

advised men to vote for the saloon. They would certainly 
have done so if they had believed their end could have 
been attained in that way. It is more satisfactory even to 
a bad man to win a square and open victory than to gain 
his end by indirection and deceit. 

But the liquor men know that they are in a hopeless 
minority, and they can only maintain their existence by 
two methods: 

1. By getting the people to sustain measures for the 
protection of the saloon, by deceiving them as to the 
character of such measures and making them believe they 
are temperance measures. 

2. By keeping up a sectional agitation and keeping 
awake sectional hate among the people so as to keep the 
enemies of the saloon divided. 

I can in this address consider only the first method — 
that of deceiving the people in relation to the measures 
brought before them. Let us note their methods of cam- 
paigning. 

In the Texas amendment campaign the anti-prohibition 

committee issued the following circular, which was marked 

" Confidential," and sent only to the saloon keepers of the 

State : 

Dallas, Texas, April 3, 1887. 

Dear Sir : — The Prohibitionists are active, and the Central Committee 
have thought best to issue to our friends the following admonition and 
advice, so that there will be harmony and united effort all over the State to 
the end that our business property and individual rights may be protected 
against the prohibition crusade. 

1st .—The saloon men in each county should see that at least one or two 
active, influential men from their county (not engaged in the whisky busi- 
ness) attend the Dallas convention, to be held May 4, 1887. 
*********** 

5th.— The saloon men should be very active and vigilant and they should 
as much as possible work through those who have no personal interest 
in the business, and who are fighting prohibition on principle. 

That circular gives the key to the whole situation. The 
saloon men knew they had not a majority in their favor, 
so they dared not come out openly. Their plan was to 




R. S. THOMPSON, OF OHIO. 



High License. 97 

get men " not engaged in the whisky business " to go be- 
fore the people and oppose the amendment on the ground 
that its adoption would be an injury to the cause of tem- 
perance. 

In the Pennsylvania amendment campaign the anti- 
amendment workers at the polls, though paid with the 
money raised by the saloon-keepers, distillers and brewers, 
did not wear badges marked " for the saloon " — they wore 
badges marked i4 high license.'' 

In all the stump speeches made during that campaign 
against the amendment, none of the speakers, though paid 
with money furnished by the saloon keepers, distillers and 
brewers, ever plead with the people to vote for the sa- 
loons, — they said, %t Vote tor high license, because it is a 
better temperance measure than prohibition." 

The saloon-keepers, the brewers and distillers furnished 
a fund by which they secured control of the columns of 
nearly all the influential papers of the State. They pre- 
pared what they pleased, and had it published in these 
papers at fifty cents a line. 

But in all these articles prepared by the saloon-keepers, 
the distillers and the brewers, and paid for by them at so 
high a price, the statement was never made that the saloon 
was a good thing. The people were never urged to vote 
for the saloon. They were urged to vote down the amend- 
ment because high^li cense was a better temperance measure. 
The line of argument followed in these articles issued and 
paid for by the liquor men was substantially as follows : 

Every saloon is an evil. The more saloons, the more evil. The less 
saloons, the less evil. There will be less saloons under a license law than 
under a prohibitory amendment ; therefore vote down the amendment in 
order to have fewer saloons. 

We therefore find this singular situation : 
The saloon exists. 
The people do not wish it to exist. 

It exists, protected by laws enacted by the people who 
do not wish it to exist. 



98 Solid Shot. 

The people enacted these laws, or permitted them to be 
enacted, under the belief that they were laws to restrain 
the saloon. 

Which shows several things : 

1. That the race is not always to the swift nor the battle 
to the strong. 

2. That the children of this world are wiser in their 
generation than the children of light. 

3. That the saloon will continue as long as the saloon 
men can deceive the people into supporting saloon pro- 
tective measures believing them to be saloon restrictive 
measures. 

4. That any institution which can only live by lying 
must be a child of the Father of lies, and with him is 
doomed. 

Now let us look at the inner council of the saloon man- 
agers and see what is their real opinion concerning high 
license. We will take first the testimony of the liquor 
men themselves. The National Protective Association of 
liquor dealers in its platform declares: 

That we are unalterably opposed to prohibition, general or local. 

And further on in the same platform they resolved: 

That we endorse the license system and favor the enactment of laws by 
the States imposing a reasonable license that„will not result in monopoly, 
but that will give to reputable citizens the right to sell beer, wine and 
spirituous liquors. 

The Weekly Bulletin, a liquor paper of Louisville, Ky., 
said in its issue ©f March 10th, 1887: 

There is a growing sentiment among the distillers of this state in favor 
of high license, some even favoring a $1,000 license. 

The Staats Zeitung, a German liquor paper published in 

Nebraska, says: 

The principal opponents of high license in Nebraska were the brewers, 
who believed that the consumption of beer would be lessened. As they 
now tell us, the enforcement of the high license tax has not injured the 
sale of beer, and it is plain that the saloon business is now in the hands 
of a better class than of old, and that the brewer is doing a better business. 



High License. • 99 

Henry Clausen, Jr., a great German brewer, said in an 
address to the Brewers' and Maltsters' convention: 

We feel, as individual brewers, looking upon it from a business stand- 
point, that high license will concentrate the dispensing of malt and 
alcoholic drinks, and place it in the hands of more responsible parties. 
That is what we are seeking: it is to our interest. 

The saloon-keepers of Wisconsin adopted the following 
resolution: 

We endorse the license system and favor the imposing of a reasonable 
license that will not result in monopoly, and condemn the indiscriminate 
issue of licenses, recognizing that the officers of the law should inquire 
into the character and qualifications of the persons to whom licenses are 
issued. 

The Southwest (Dem. liquor paper) of Cincinnati tells 
of a saloon keeper in that city who declares : 

The Scott law [a tax law, practically a license law] is the only safe 
and practicable measure now to save the liquor trade from perdition in 
Ohio, and there are hundreds of Democratic saloon men in Cincinnati who 
will vote the Republican ticket this fall because they want another Scott 
law. 

That was in 1885. They did, and the Republican ticket 
was elected in consequence. The same paper said later: 

Prohibition amendments to State Constitutions seem to be the order of 
the day. Tennessee has adopted a joint resolution ol this sort. Michigan 
follows suit; so does Missouri. In Minnesota such a plan was choked oft 
apparently only by a $1,000 and $500 license scheme. 

Peter E. Her, of the Willow Springs distillery, of Omaha, 
Nebraska, where the license is $1,000, says: 

I believe if it were put to a vote of the liquor dealers and saloon men 
whether it should be for high license, no license or low license, that they 
would almost unanimously vote for high license. 

The Western Brewer of Chicago says: 

Without high license, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota, and perhaps 
Missouri and Wisconsin would be as likely to favor Prohibition as Iowa. 
* * * * Now there is no danger of prohibition being adopted in any 
of the states named, as long as a license law is maintained and fairly 
enforced. 

The Hotel and Saloon- Keepers^ Journal says: 

The liquor dealers do not oppose high license. They oppose a law 
with bonds and penalties. 



100 Solid Shot.' 

Henry H Schufeldt & Co., a large distilling firm of Chi- 
cago, says : 

We believe that high license is the only remedy for prohibition, and we 
think the trade in any state should favor high license. 

The U. S. Distilling Co., also of Chicago, says: 

High license gives us a longer lease and pacifies a great many who are 
unfriendly to the business. 

In answer to the question, "Would the liquor dealers of 
Illinois repeal the high license law if it were left to them 
to decide ? it answers : 

No, we would not repeal it, because that would bring about local 
option or prohibition sooner. 

The Chicago Freie Presse (German liquor) of April 29th, 
1889, has the following : 

The Chicago "Tribune" has advocated with the determination and 
zeal which mark it the cause of local option and high license since Iowa 
and Kansas went prohibition. To some German Republicans who took 
exception to this Mr. Medill explained that the only way in which the 
adoption of prohibition laws in all the Northwestern states, with the pos- 
sible exception of Wisconsin, could be hindered was to leave it to localities 
to decide whether there would be "license" or "no license " The Tribune 
opposed prohibition because it was an attack on personal liberty, because 
it did not stop the sale of spirits, and only increased the evils growing 
out of the sale of liquor, as the business was put into the hands of persons 
generally of doubtful character. Local option and high license, where the 
only barriers against the prohibition craze, and the good results of high 
license would soon lessen the number of those states which had come out 
against the granting of licenses. How accurately Mr. Medill calculated 
the effect of high license on Anglo-Americans the vote by which the prohi- 
bition amendment was defeated in Massachusetts shows. It was the 
great argument of the friends of personal liberty there that prohibition 
would stop the sale of liquor, while the license taxes would [not only 
reduce the number of saloons but] bring in a heavy income to the com- 
munity that impose them. That took with the voters and prohibition was 
beaten by an immense vote. We believe now that it is owing to the far- 
sightedness of Mr. Medill and the energetic position of the Tribune that 
Illinois has escaped paper prohibition, and the city treasury of Chicago 
has received about $2,000,000 a year from the saloons. This is sometimes 
severe on the saloon keepers, but it is insurance against prohibition. 

Dick Brothers' Quincy Brewing Company, Quincy, 111. 
(Illinois has a $500 license), say: 



High License. 101 

A license, not exceeding $500 per annum, granted to parties who have 
a residence of at least a year in the locality where such license is granted 
and who sustain a good character in the community, would be a benefit 
to the retailer and to the trade. * * * We coincide with the Cincin- 
nati Volksblatt, that a license as mentioned above will bar out prohibi- 
tion. * * * We do not believe that the liquor dealers of our state 
would be in favor of the repeal of the present license law. * * * Our 
experience is that a moderate high license law, if not incumbered with 
other prohibitory provisions, will not lessen the consumption of liquor. 

Metz & Bro., brewers, Omaha, Neb. ($1,000 license), say: 
High license has been no injury to our business. In our state we think 

it bars out prohibition. * * * In our opinion high license does not 

lessen the consumption of liquor. 

The Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association, of St. Louis 
(Missouri has a $500 license), writes: 

In our opinion it is true that high license bars out prohibition. * * * 
We do not believe that high license lessens the consumption of liquor 
or beer. 

Now let us see what political papers that favor license 
have to say about it. The New York World, Democratic 
and anti-fanatic, says: 

Many liquor dealers believe that the principle of high license is in the 
interest of the trade. They argue, and with good reason, that just as 
much liquor will be consumed by those who now drink at saloons which 
would be discontinued, while the patronage of the better class of bar- 
rooms would be largely increased. At the same tune the practical 
indorsement of liquor selling by professed temperance advocates, 
through the enactment of a high license Ioav, would be a safeguard 
against prohibitory legislation. 

The New York Tribune, in pleading with some of the 
refractory liquor men who thought that the Crosby high 
license law was not dealing with them justly, said to them: 

Even the liquor interest, if it understood the things which concern it 
clearly would refrain from fighting this bill. 

The New York Sun, Democratic and anti-prohibition, 
in advocating the Crosby law and urging the liquor dealers 
to make no opposition to its passage, said: 

The liquor dealers should pause and remember that prohibition is but 
an alternative to high license. Defeating the one will be a potent pro- 
moter of the other. 



102 Solid Shot, 

The Philadelphia Press, Republican and anti-prohibi- 
tion, says : 

A few of the liquor men are shrewd enough to see that the passage of 
the high license bill will aid them (by making the traffic less oflensive and 
less harmful) in their fight against prohibition. 

The Philadelphia Times, opposed to prohibition, says : 

The liquor interest of this State has it in its power to postpone prohibi- 
tion indefinitely by obeying and enforcing the new license law. 

A prominent Republican and anti-prohibitionist in the 
Minnesota legislature, in speaking of the opposition of 
some of the liquor men to the high license law (which they 
objected to, not because it was a license law, but because 
they thought the rate too high), said: 

We wish to say to the saloon men that they are making the mistake of 
their lives. If every saloon man in Minnesota wants to see prohibition a 
fixed fact, and that too within two years, let them "down" this bill. As 
sure as there is a political future for any party, so sure will the Prohi- 
bitionists of Minnesota carry the day, and every saloon man be made an 
outcast within her borders. * * * Prohibition is traveling this way, 
gentlemen. A good, sound, high licence law will stop that progress — 
nothing else will. 

The Minneapolis Tribune, Republican and anti-prohibi- 
tion, said : 

We make the assertion unhesitatingly : There can be but one of two 
results, either high license will be enacted and the legal sale of liquor go 
on uninterruptedly in this State, or, as the natural outgrowth of a refusal, 
prohibition will follow close on the heels of such refusal. 

The St. Paul, Minn., Globe says: 

The only chance for the defeat of Prohibition (in Dakota) is for the 
other side to stand squarely by high license and make an honest fight on 
that line. If there is any faltering on that line, the field might as well be 
abandoned to the Prohibitionists. It is immaterial whether high license 
has intrinsic merit or not — the popular temper makes it the only effective 
barrier to legal exclusion. The activity and zeal of the radical element 
show a determined purpose, and it will win if the opposition does not 
display prudence and tact. High license must be the word if they do not 
want prohibition written all over the constitution. 

The testimony is uniform and conclusive that the liquor 
men one and all favor license as a means to bar out prohi- 
bition. By presenting it to the people as a " temperance 



High License. 103 

measure," they can get the people to vote for it and thus 
save the saloon from the one enemy it dreads, prohibition. 

Now let us get the saloon-keepers' views of prohibition. 
The Wine and Spirit Circular says: 

We are glad to see that "high license" is coming into use instead of 
prohibition as a shibboleth for the teetotalers. 

In the report of the Board of Trustees of the New York 
State Brewers' and Maltsters' Association we find the fol- 
lowing : 

The Prohibition movement can't be belittled. Our friends in Iowa 
belittled it; they scofled at the bare idea of its success. We may have 
the same experience here that they are now suffering under, if we allow 
the Prohibitionists to go on. 

The Brauer und Maelzer says : 

Let the brewers of this free land unite in the war-cry : "Down with the 
hypocrites!" "Down with Prohibition!" The future is what we have to 
deal with. Let the past rest. 
♦ **#******* 

Dear reader, the fortress of our liberty begins to grow unstable and to 
be so near decay that, unless we would be buried under its ruins, entirely 
new lines must be drawn, and the Prohibitionists— the root of all evil- 
must be saluted with strains which will not sound agreeably upon their 
ears. 

Bonfort's Wine and Spirit Circular says : 

The only great trouble the trade now has to contend with is Prohibition. 

The Southwest, the saloon keepers' organ published at 
Cincinnati, says: 

Whatever political party assails the liquor traffic and threatens the 
prosperity of those who are engaged in this business, threatens with 
destruction the circulation and prosperity of the Southwest, which would 
die were this trade to be crushed as it would be were St. John and St. 
Leonard to succeed in their mad scheme of prohibition. 
THE POINTS PROVED. 

We have therefore demonstrated so far the following 
points : 

1. The people are by a large majority opposed to the 
saloon and favor its destruction. 

2. The saloon exists under license laws supported by 
those who are opposed to the saloon, on the supposition 
that license is a temperance measure. 



104 Solid Shot. , 

3. That the saloons advocate license and oppose prohi- 
bition, and aim to use in their defense men " not engaged 
in the whisky business." 

4. That they advocate license because it is the only plan 
on which they can secure the co-operation of temperance 
men in the defense of their business, and without such 
co-operation the business would certainly be destroyed. 

HIGH LICENSE CLAIMS. 

The claims of the advocates of high license as a temper- 
ance measure are : 

1. That it reduces the number of saloons. 

2. That it crushes out the " low dives " and small u dog- 
geries," drives the business into the hands of " responsi- 
ble " men, and so elevates the character of the saloon and 
makes it more " respectable ." 

3. That it is a self- enforcing measure, as the " respecta- 
ble " saloons, which have paid liberally for the privilege 
of carrying on the business, will be a detective force, 
ready to hunt out and report all parties who are running 
in competition with them, without having paid for the 
privilege. 

4. That it brings in a large revenue and so makes the 
saloon bear a portion of the burden it imposes on the 
community. 

We will examine these claims for high license one by 
one. 

1. It reduces the number of saloons. 

Possibly, in some cases. Statistics vary. In some places 
the number of saloons has decreased under high license ; 
in others the number has increased. Either point can be 
proved by selecting statistics. I shall not argue it, or 
waste space in lengthy statistics that are of no importance. 

The important point is that a reduction in the number 
of saloons, by any law which gives full legal recognition 
to those that are left, is no gain to the cause of temper- 



High License. 105 

ance, but on the contrary usually increases the consump- 
tion of liquor. 

The Chicago Tribune says: 

There is nothing prohibitory about the reduction of the number of 
saloons in any community by one-half, if those which remain are abun- 
dant to supply the demands of the drinking classes. Whenever the 
demand indicates that the saloons are numerous enough, the opening of 
new drinking places may be safely counted upon. The saloon-keepers, as 
a class, do not suffer, for those that remain in the business have larger 
sales and greater profits under the high license system than they have 
under the low license system. The distillers and brewers secure an 
advantage in selling to good customers at fair prices, and avoiding at 
once risky sales and the competition of cheap imitations. 

After the law reducing the number of saloons in Boston 
had come into operation, the Boston Herald said: 

About all the 780 saloon-keepers in Boston say that their business has 
more than doubled under the law which reduced the number of saloons 
one-half. 

You will observe that while the number of saloons was 
only reduced one half, the trade of each was more than 
doubled, so that the reduction in the number of saloons 
resulted in an increased consumption of drink. 

There has been a slight decrease in the number of 
saloons in Ohio since the enactment of the Dow law tax — 
and a large increase in the consumption of intoxicants. 

The greatest injury done by the saloon is its work of 
making customers. Did the saloon exist merely to supply 
drink to those who want it, there would be comparatively 
little need of prohibition. The saloon would prohibit 
itself in a short time by killing its customers ; but the 
chief end of the saloon is to make customers, and this it 
does by presenting to the young and inexperienced attrac- 
tions and allurements that induce them to come within its 
doors, taste the first glass, and then another and another, 
until the appetite is planted and a customer made, of 
whose trade the saloon is sure till, by its murderous hand 
it kills him. 

The danger from the saloon is therefore not in propor- 



106 Solid Shot, 

tion to the number but in proportion to the attractiveness. 
One saloon that is able to present liberal attractions to 
the young and unwary, may, and probably will, do more 
damage than twenty or fifty that exist simply to supply 
the demand for drink. 

Suppose a boy of respectable parents and good training 
is in a strange city ; suppose he is weary and homesick 
and lonesome, as boys away from home are apt to be 
sometimes. Suppose that while feeling thus he happens 
to walk down a back street fairly lined with low •' dog- 
geries.'' A disgusting smell comes through the open 
doors ; dirty, drunken, loathsome looking men are loung- 
ing around the entrance; untidy bar- keepers are to be 
seen inside, and sounds of blasphemy and quarreling greet 
his ears. Will this boy be attracted by such scenes? 
Will there be any danger that a boy who has been reared 
amidst decency and comfort, will wish to go inside, sit 
down and call for a drink? 

Suppose the boy leaves this "low" part of the city and 
goes to a better street. He passes a so-called " respectable 
saloon." Everything about it is neat and tidy. Drunken- 
ness and disorder are carefully suppressed. The brightest 
of lights shine through the windows, and strains of sweet 
music, reminding him of home, come from behind the 
green shades. Perhaps outside there stands a pleasant- 
looking, well dressed u gentleman," who, seeing that the 
boy is a stranger and looks lonesome, asks him to step in 
for a moment; he engages him in conversation, gains his 
good will, sets up the drinks, invites him to " call again." 
For many of these " high class" saloons employ men to 
do just this sort of work, so that they may make custom- 
ers, and they must make customers out of the boys and 
young men who have not yet acquired the appetite for 
drink. Now, if high license does, as its advocates claim, 
diminish the number of saloons, the result is simply that 
those which are left, having full protection of the law, 



High License. 



107 



and reduced competition, are able to increase the attrac- 
tions they can present, and thereby increase the evil they 
can accomplish. 

Mr. Otis Hardy, a prominent citizen of Joliet, 111., where 
the license fee is $500, says of the effect in that city: 

It has reduced the number of saloons, but has not reduced the amount 
of drinking in Joliet. It has made drinking more popular and its tempta- 
tions greater by the expensive fixtures and gaudy show of saloons. 

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which is not troubled with 
fanaticism in the least, says : 

The inducements to take a drink are growing greater every year. 
Some saloon-keepers in town now give away a pretty square meal with a 
glass of beer. One firm started out with a fried oyster with every drink, 
and has now come up to "a fried egg and a slice of bread with every 
drink." Some even give a slice of roast beef, and a potato on a plate with 
a glass of beer. 

In the most damaging work of the saloon, — that of 
making drunkards — one "high class " saloon is more dan- 
gerous than fifty low dodgeries, and it is therefore demon- 
strated : That if high license does reduce the number of 
saloons, the result of such reduction is injurious instead 
of beneficial to the cause of temperance. 

Never was the restriction policy more thoroughly tried 
than in Pittsburgh, where the number of saloons were 
reduced from about 1,500 in '87 to 244 in '88. This 
decrease was the result not of high license but of the 
refusal of the court to grant licenses. The result was as 
follows : 



YEAH. 


Number 

of 
Saloons. 


Total 

of 

Arrests. 


Arrests 

for 

Drunkenness. 


1887 

1888 


1,500 
244 


8,565 
10,443 


1,914 
2,123 





So we see that a tremendous reduction in the number 
of saloons was accompanied by a great increase in drunk 
enness and crime. 

The only exception that we know of to the rule that a 



108 Solid Shot, 

reduction in the number of saloons, where those that 
remain are given legal standing and are sufficient in 
number to supply the demand, is Philadelphia, in which 
there was quite a decrease of crime after the enforcement 
of the Brooks law. An examination of the case, however, 
shows that this decrease was not due to the reduction in 
the number of saloons on week days, but to the closing 
of all thesaloons on Sunday. 

2. The second claim is that high license crushes out 
the dives and doggeries and puts the business into the 
hands of responsible men who will run respectable saloons. 
The facts do not sustain the claim. Chicago has a license 
fee of $500, but the testimony is that no city is better 
supplied with dives and doggeries. The Chicago Tribune, 
a Republican paper that advocates license and opposes 
prohibition, says: 

The dives and doggeries are running wide open. They swarm with 
thieves, sluggers, thugs and prostitutes. They make no pretense of 
regarding the law. Orgies are kept up in them until long after the hours 
when they are required to be closed. Robberies are an every-day affair, 
and murders are continually increasing. 

The Grand Jury of Cook county, 111., which includes 
Chicago, declared: 

Dives of the lowest order defy the city ordinance by keeping open from 
dawn until midnight, and from midnight till dawn, wherein congregate 
disreputable women, thieves, and criminals well known to the police. 

Andrew Paxton, agent of the law and order league of 
Chicago, and who is no fanatic on the subject of license, 
says of the situation in that city under high license : 

Some of the dens are of the most infamous character, and are a menace 
to the city. They are filled with thieves and debased women. The chances 
are that any man who enters them will be drugged and robbed. One of 
these places was raided one night and eighteen women of the basest sort 
were found there. Some were drunk, and nearly all partially so. 

Hon. H. W. Hardy, of Nebraska, who drafted the $1,000 
high license bill of that State, under the impression that it 
would help the cause of temperance by removing the ''low 



High Lieense. 109 

dives and doggeries," says of the practical workings of his 

own bill: 

The effect has been a bitter disappointment, increasing the worst evils 
of the traffic. 

Kev. Herrick Johnson says of the workings of the high 
license law in Chicago: 

The saloons closed by high license are chiefly those connected with 
groceries, and kept as accomodation to customers, and probably the least 
harmful, the least patronized, and the most decent of all. All the vilest 
saloons are in full blast. The great arteries of the cities show no closed 
saloons. 

Testimony might be multiplied without end, but it is all 
on one side; the claim that high license crushes out the 
low dives and doggeries is absolutely repudiated by the 
facts. 

Moreover, the relation between the "palace saloon'' and 
the "low doggery" are such that you cannot suppress the 
latter while the former exists. The " palace saloon " and 
" low doggery " bear to each other the relation of cause 
and effect. In many cases the "low doggery" on the alley 
is owned, or at least controlled, by the proprietor of the 
"palace saloon" on the fashionable street. He has to 
keep it as a place to relieve him of the customers that have 
been so degraded by habitually patronizing his bar that 
their presence in his saloon would be an injury to his 
business. 

The palace saloon makes the customers for the doggery. 
The doggery relieves the palace saloon of the customers it 
no longer wants. 

You saw that elegant gentleman in immaculate clothes, 
with a silk hat and gold headed cane, who tossed off his 
twenty- five cent drink in that palace? 

You saw that poor wretch, clothed in rags, with bloated 
features and bleared eyes, hanging around the door of that 
alley doggery (just back of the palace saloon), waiting for 
some one from whom he can beg a nickel to get him a 
drink? 



110 Solid Shot 

Wait a few years and the poor wretch will be filling a 
pine box in the potter's field, and the elegant gentleman 
will be filling his place on the steps of the alley doggery. 

The palace saloon manufactures the drunkard. The 
allev doggery finishes the work and consigns him to his 
final doom. Talk about keeping the palace saloon and 
suppressing the doggeries ! As well propose to inoculate 
men with the virus of small-pox and suppress the eruption ! 

The second part of the second claim is that it makes the 
saloons more "respectable." That it makes the saloon 
more outwardly attractive if it is in any way successful, is 
undoubtedly the case ; but, as we have just shown, what- 
ever influence it may have in this direction is a direct in- 
jury to the cause ot temperance. 

But no license fee was ever yet put on a saloon that 
made it u respectable." The claim is absurd on its face. 
As well talk about a gentlemanly hog, a benevolent rattle- 
snake, or seek for a cool, shady bower in the land of the 
lost. A saloon cannot be respectable. You might as well 
expect to make the devil honest by putting gold shoes on 
his hoofs, silver tips to his horns, and a diamond in the 
point of his tail. 

The saloon is of the devil, devilish. It has its origin in 
hell and leads its victims thither. It is a cowardly mur- 
derer; its business is to kill, and it spares neither age, 
innocency, nor helplessness. Talk about making such an 
institution respectable! 

You may gild it more. You may cut down competition 
so that the keeper of the saloon can put a little more plate- 
glass about the bar and hire a better band of music behind 
the shades. You may enable him to increase its attrac- 
tions so as to double its powers of destruction, but you can 
never make it respectable. 

It is therefore demonstrated that high license does not 
and cannot either crush out the low doggeries or make the 
saloon more respectable. 



High Lieense. Ill 

3. The next claim is that high license is a self enforcing 
measure, as the " respectable " saloons, which have paid 
liberally for the privilege of carrying on the business, will 
be a detective force, ready to hunt out and report all par- 
ties who are running in competition with them, without 
having paid for the privilege. 

The fact is that they do not. Hon. H. W. Hardy, of 
Nebraska, the author of the high license law of that State, 
in speaking of the practical workings of his own law, says : 

Saloon-keepers violate the law, just as they always have, and none 
dare raise a finger to enforce the law. 

Prof. G. W. Elliott, of St. Louis, Chancellor of Wash- 
ington University, who has seen its operation in that State, 



Yet the highest license exacted, and the strictest vigilance of police 
and philanthropists, have not succeeded in reducing the number of dram- 
shops, the amount of liquor consumed, the number of unlicensed liquor 
dealers, or the fearful results in poverty, misery and crime. 

The Chicago Grand Jury, before referred to, testified 
that the saloons in that city did not keep the law — and 
did not inform on one another. 

The Pittsbug Commercial- Gazette. Dec. 13, '89, says: 

The magnitude of the illegal liquor traffic is really astonishing. There 
is scarcely an alley or a side street in any of the wards of the lower part 
of the city, as well as on the South Side, that does not contain from one to 
twenty groceries, where beer and whisky are sold in defiance of the law. 
To publish a complete list of these "saloons" would require several 
columns of an ordinary-sized newspaper. A ^legalized seller, when asked 
yesterday if he was aware of the violations going on, said: "Yes, cer- 
tainly I am, but what am I going to do about it? I paid the county $500 
to protect my business, but yet I see men selling all around me without 
license. I canH inform on them because such a course would injure 
my trade. The people who sympathize with the lawbreakers would not 
patronize me, if I made a fuss over the injustice of my having to pay for 
what others are doing without paying/' 

License does license, but it does not regulate. The man 
who has paid five hundred or a thousand dollars for the 
permission to run a .saloon is going to pay a great deal 
more attention to the permission than to the regulations 



112 Solid Shot. 

attending it. The fact is established beyond the perad- 
venture of a doubt that when the government gives a man 
a permit to kill men for the money there is in it, that man 
is going to kill them in the manner that is most profitable 
to himself. 

The fact is established that under high license the 
temptation to the saloon keeper to violate the law so as 
to increase his profits is so sreat that such a thing as a 
licensed saloon that keeps the law cannot be found, and 
the high-toned saloon cannot inform against the low dog- 
gery, for if it did the low doggery could inform against it. 

You cannot make the saloon law-abiding by licensing 
it. The business is in its essential nature law-defying. 
The saloon is the child of the Devil, and he was turned 
out of heaven because he would not keep the law there, 
and it is an absurdity to suppose that any such panacea as 
high license will make his children keep the law here. 

The only law-abiding saloon is the dead saloon, and the 
only way to make the saloon keep the law is to kill it. 

4. We come to the last argument, that it brings in a 
large revenue and so makes the saloon bear a portion of 
the burden it imposes on the community. 

This, though usually presented as the last argument for 
high license, is really the foundation argument with many. 
^Behold the revenue!" u How it lightens our taxes." 
These are really the arguments that induce many to ac 
cept the saloonkeepers' plan and advocate high license. 
The saloon-keeper runs his saloon for the money there is 
in it, and the State licenses it for the money there is in 
it, so that the question is solely one of profit, and not of 
gain to the cause of temperance. 

But taking it on the ground of profit from the revenue 
obtained, does high license pay? 

As a witness on this question we call Charley Foster, an 
advocate of the Scott law and an opponent of prohibition. 
If by his testimony it can be shown that high license does 



High License. 113 

not pay, even as a revenue measure, it will be useless for 
its advocates to call for further witnesses. Charley Foster 
estimated the annual cost of the liquor traffic to the State 
of Ohio at seventy million dollars. It is perfectly safe to 
say that in this estimate he was not unduly influenced by 
hatred of the traffic. It would not be difficult to prove 
that the cost was very much greater, but we will take it 
at his figures and the account stands thus: 

Revenue from the Dow law $ 2,000,000 

Cost of the traffic 70,000,000 



Net profit to the State —$68,000,000 

It is fortunate, when we have such calculations as these 
to make, that mathematicians have invented the plan of a 
minus quantity, for the annual profit from license in Ohio, 
according to the figures of the advocates of the measure, 
is sixty eight million dollars less than nothing ! 

Were the real cost of the liquor traffic to the State given 
in the above estimate it would be seen at once that license 
costs the State over fifty dollars for every dollar of revenue 
it affords. 

Nor is this loss merely felt by the immediate victims of 
the traffic. The man who thinks that the revenue from 
the saloons is lightening his taxes is deceiving himself and 
knows not the facts. In Massachusetts in 1886, the cost 
of State institutions was as follows : 

Paupers $1,731,000 

Lunacy and charity 761,000 

Almshouses 400,000 

Police expenses 2,956,000 

Jails and houses of correction 190,000 

Courts, not including superior and supreme courts. 443,000 



$6,481,000 



It is usually estimated that 85 per cent, of these expen- 
ses are due to the liquor traffic. Taking 75 per cent, which 
is the lowest estimate usually made even by the friends 
viii 



114 Solid Shot. 

of license and the account in Massachusetts for 1886 stands 
as follows : 

Direct taxes for keeping up penal and charitable institutions on 

account of the liquor traffic. 75 per cent, of $6,481,000 $4,860,750 

Income received by the State from licenses 1,175,000 

Net loss to the State $3,685,750 

And it must be remembered that this makes no esti- 
mate of the amount of money spent in drink, of the time 
wasted, of the property destroyed; it represents only the 
direct taxes paid out to take care of the criminals and 
paupers produced by the traffic 

The Home Guard, of York, Pa., has been making an 
estimate of the cost and profit of the liquor traffic to the 
tax payers of that county. The following are the results 
of the examination : 

EXPENSES TO TAX PAYERS. 

Grand Jurors $ 1,209 40 

Petit Jurors 4,752 44 

Incidental court expenses 2,000 00 

Court detective 500 00 

Constable's returns to court 1,053 80 

District Attorney's and Clerk's fees 3,904 71 

Judges' (proportionate) 3,000 00 

Witness fees and court costs by the parties, convicted and 

ignored by grand jury, at least 3,000 00 

Aldermen, justices, constable and witnesses in discharged com- 
monwealth cases paid by county 15,580 82 

Inquests, coroner and justices 461 00 

County prison expenses 10,222 19 

Sheriff's fees in commonwealth cases 335 62 

Conveying convicts to penitentiary 751 15 

Sherifl' notifying jurors (proportionate) 75 00 

Eastern penitentiary 835 65 

Total cost of courts, prisons, etc., $47,681 78 

County almshouse 29,000 00 

State Lunatic Asylum 1,667 12 

Disbursements by York Benevolent Society 2,996 00 

Total $81,344 90 

It is a moderate estimate to say that three -fourths of 
these expenses are directly due to the liquor traffic. The 



High License. 115 

county's revenue from liquor licenses is $21,300. With 
these figures we get the following exhibit of the direct 
profit and loss to the tax payers of York county, Pennsyl- 
vania, of maintaining the liquor traffic : 

Direct cost in taxes (three-fourths of $31,344.90 $61,008 75 

Receipts from licenses 21,300 00 

Net loss to county $39,708 67 

Now this sum of $39,708.6 1 is simply the additional 
amount of direct taxes the people of York county, 
Pennsylvania, have to pay every year as the net profit of 
that wonderful revenue from high license. 

Add to this the amount paid out by the people for drink, 
the loss of business by all classes of business men and 
other expenses, and it will be seen that high license is — 
taking it from a financial standpoint only — the most 
expensive luxury a community ever indulged in. 

These statistics might be multiplied indefinitely, but 
enough has been given to prove that the largest revenue 
ever derived from the saloons through license, high or 
low, has never equaled the direct expense in taxes to the 
communities caused by the presence of the saloon. 

And there is yet another feature to this question of 
revenue, supposing that it really did, as claimed, lighten 
taxes. From whom is it gathered? The saloon- keeper? 
Not a dollar of it. The saloon-keeper is only the tax 
gatherer whom the State employs to gather the most 
odious tax that was ever collected, from the most wretch- 
ed and helpless portion of the community. Every dollar 
of it represents bread taken from the mouths of starving 
children, clothing taken from shivering women, — shoes 
snatched from freezing feet. In order that the rich man 
who is clad in purple and fine linen and faring sumptu- 
ously every day, may have a few hundred dollars lifted 
from the burden of taxes that he bears, a hundred wretch- 
ed.famiiies have the bread taken from their tables. 



116 Solid Shot 

Many a poor woman wears out soul and body earning a 
pittance over the washtub, which is taken from her by her 
drunken husband, passed to the saloon-keeper and from 
him to the tax gatherer in order to lift the burdens of tax- 
ation from the millionaires. * 

Oh the cruelty of it ! The cowardice of it ! The mean- 
ness of it ! What shall we say of a Christian nation that 
taxes poverty and want in order that wealth and affluence 
mav be protected ? 

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. 

1. High license does little if anything toward reducing 
the number of saloons, and what it does in that direction 
is an injury to the cause of temperance. 

2. It does not crush out the " doggeries", and "low 
dives ;" it does not make the business " more respecta- 
ble," and in so far as it has any effect in making it 
apparently respectable, it is an injury to the cause of 
temperance. 

3. The saloons are always lawless and the law is no 
better enforced under high license than under low license, 
or under prohibition. 

4. That the revenue it produces costs fifty dollars for 
every dollar received, and therefore as a revenue it is a 
failure. 

We find then that high license is simply a fraud. A 
saloon measure masquerading in a temperance cloak. A 
compromise proposed by the saloon power for its own 
protection and which depends for its success (as a protec 
tion to the saloon) on the support of men who are in 
opposition to the saloon. 

Yerily the skill and power of the devil of the saloon 
are wonderful. He makes his enemies to serve him, and 
induces those who hate him to stand as guar J s around his 
citadel. 

The stronghold of King Alcohol would have been 
stormed by the hosts of prohibition long ago but that it 



High License. 117 

has been guarded by an army of tempearnce men, Chris- 
tians, who with the guns of high license have been 
protecting the fortress. 

A wonderful army indeed is the army of high license ! 
It holds aloft the banner of temperance ; it proclaims in 
trumpet tones its devotion to the principles of sobriety 
and order, yet it marches under the orders of King Alcohol, 
is led in the field by Marshal Gambrinus— fights with the 
weapons forged in his furnace, and is to day the only force 
that delays the victorious progress of the armies of prohi- 
bition. 

Let Christian men and temperance men learn to recog- 
nize the high license scheme as a scheme of the Evil One 
intended only to delude them into aiding him in his 
ruinous work, and we will hear no more of it ; and when 
it goes the curse of the drink traffic will go with it — for 
high license is the last ditch in which it has taken its 
stand. 



118 Solid Shot. 



ABOLITION-PROHIBITION, 



IS HISTORY BEING REPEATED?— THE KEY TO VICTORY. 



SPEECH BY WILBER COLVIN. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

When I lived at home on the farm, dogs sometimes got 
after and into my father's flocks ; and it was on several 
occasions my pleasure to practice upon those dogs what 
I now preach as regarding the saloon dogs — prohibition. 
And be my rifle ever so trusty, I always felt a little more 
certain of bringing down the dog, particularly when he 
was trying to dodge me, if I took a " rest." I shall shoot 
from a " rest" to-night. Hence the manuscript: 

During the time ellotted me this evening I desire to 
present as prominently as possible a few fundamental 
principles that I regard of vital importance at this stage 
of the Prohibition party's conflict. And as my time is 
limited I shall proceed with very little by way of intro- 
duction. 

The Prohibition party is nearing a crisis in its history. 
It must either soon become the acknowledged leader, or 
sink into insignificance. 

Among the people at large there is a general but vague 
and undefined idea that the anti-saloon fight is coming, 
and is not now far of; that the next great political issue 
is to be along the lines of this question. But just how, 
when, or in exactly what torm the issue will assume 
formidable and predominent proportions there is a variety 
of opinions and not large clearness of perception. We do 



Abolition — Prohibition. 119 

not profess to have any revelation or unusual endowments 
so as to see and understand this matter above others ; but, 
after the doctrine of our Methodist brethren, we do feel 
called to exhort somewhat upon this question. 

Upon the Prohibition party and its leaders almost 
exclusively rests the responsibility of marking out the 
lines and molding public opinion, without which nothing 
can be accomplished in this government, up to the point 
where the prohibitory principle of dealing with the liquor 
traffic will become predominant and executive as a policy 
of government. It is for them to lay out the line or lines 
of attack and marshal the people up to and along them to 
victory; because the point has been reached when the 
Prohibition party and its avowed supporters are the only 
visible, practical, active, and determined agents in the 
work of overthrowing the rum power and eradicating the 
curse of liquor from our land. Non-partisian Prohibition 
is a nonentity, a delusion ; local option and high license 
are simply compromises " vicious in principle and power- 
less as a remedy." These are propositions that we will 
not now argue. Put them squarely to any fair-minded, 
reasonably well informed man and he will not deny their 
truth. Furthermore, propound the question, " Is prohibi- 
tion right?' and the great majority of men will answer, 
" Yes." " Would they like to see and enjoy the condition 
of affairs that would exist with no liquor traffic, no 
saloons?" "Yes." "But" — aye, there's the rub. How? 
Can it be? Can prohibition ever obtain, and if so, how? 

They would liko to see and enjoy prohibition, but are 
not willing to sacrifice present political relations to obtain 
it. They are willing to have it come, would perhaps give 
it a good word ; they are passive in the matter so long as 
it does not or will not be likely to disturb present political 
relations. But just as soon as ever the agitation of the 
matter jeopardizes, threatens, or even disturbs old polit- 
ical relations they either actively, of their own volition, 



120 Solid Shot. 

or constructively, by devotedly following leaders hostile 
to prohibition, place themselves in direct opposition to the 
growth, development and success of prohibition principles 
and practices. 

This lays the foundation for the first main proposition 
to which I desire to call attention to-night, and one which 
I believe should be rung and rerung into the ears, mind, 
and very being of every Prohibitionist. For even in our 
own ranks we have men, too many men, who are not clear 
as to their position, not firmly builded upon solid rock. 

The Prohibition party in its organization and purposes 
proposes the establishment of a governmental policy con- 
cerning a vital question of morals and of public welfare 
radically different from that either proposed in theory or 
carried out in practice by any of the other existing polit- 
ical parties of this nation. 

Now let us be clear as to a few points. This is a gov- 
ernment of and by the people. The people, for the pur- 
pose of unity of action upon matters of public concern, 
unite around some matter of common interest, some 
"principal idea," and organize themselves so as to elect 
men to make and enforce laws in harmony with that 
"principal idea," and others radiating from or subordinate 
to it. We call such an organization a political party. 
Accordingly these parties in truth administer the govern- 
ment, and in accordance with the "principal idea'' upon 
which they are iounded. 

In the earlier times of this nation the people who be- 
lieved in a strong centralized government organized 
about that "principal idea," and elected their representa- 
tives, and the Federal party administered the government. 
On the other hand the people who favored a less cen- 
tralized government and favored giving greater promi- 
nence to the individual States, organized under the name 
of the Anti-Federal party, later styled the Democratic 
party, and after a 'time the majority of the people favored 



Abolition — Prohibition. . 121 

their policy, and that party came into control of the 
government. 

Later, in slavery days, for several administrations before 
the war, the party that was not opposed to the extension 
of slavery was in the ascendency and the administration 
of the government was in accordance with that idea, and 
slavery was practically undisturbed and unchecked. But 
there were those who opposed slavery ; opposed its exten- 
sion, opposed its existence ; who maintained that it was 
wrong morally and corrupt politically. They sought to 
elect their representatives, and failed, many, many times. 
But they kept up the agitation, kept on trying, until in 
1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President by the peo- 
ple united into a party that declared in its platform that 
"All men are created equal"; and "that the normal con- 
dition of all the territory of the United States is that of 
freedom." And when, less thau three years later, this 
same President by one stroke of his pen overturned this 
"peculiar institution" of so long standing and wiped slav- 
ery forever from our nation, the majority of the people 
stood solidlv by him and maintained the act with their 
lives. 

Now let me repeat my proposition with emphasis, stating 
it a little more concretely. 

The Prohibition party advocates and intends to put 
into operation when it shall .obtain control of the govern- 
ment, a policy of dealing with certain matters of vital 
concern to the people's welfare, to-wit, the traffic in intoxi- 
cating bevrages, radeically different from that now advocat 
ed or practiced by either or both of the old parties. Neither 
of them as parties are opposed to the existence, and are 
necessarily willing for the continuance of the traffic in 
intoxicating drinks for beverage • purposes, indefinitely — 
forever. All of their platforms and official declarations, 
and all of their legislation upon this subject, with very 
iew exceptions, are based upon the idea of the continuance 



122 Solid Shot, 

of the traffic, and not upon its extinction or even serious 
restriction. While the Prohibition party proposes by its 
organization, the enactment and enforcement of laws pro- 
viding for the utter and immediate destruction of the 
traffic. 

Let us get this idea firmly rooted: That the Prohibition 
party is not a mere protest, an agitation, a political dis 
turbance gotten up by a lot of fanatical, zealous, over- 
righteous enthusiasts with Utopian fancies, and whose 
main object is to scare some political party into doing 
something for temperance. 

The governmental policy that we propose is rational, 
sound, practical ; a policy that has been passed upon time 
and again by the highest legal tribunal of the nation and 
declared to be wise and salutary. And I would thunder 
to Prohibitionists, and likewise say to our friends, the 
enemy, that we are preparing to administer the affairs of 
this government, with all its varied interests and great 
responsibilities, along the lines radiating from this grand 
central principle, namely, that this nation must be a sober 
nation as well as a free nation. 

Standing upon this rock there is slim excuse for "help- 
ing the old party just once more" on a close election. Or 
for voting with the old party at important elections, and 
trying to build up a new party by voting with it at unim- 
portant elections. Combines and fusions, losing identity 
in local elections, voting for some old party candidates to 
help defeat the other party's man, and the like, will find 
no sanction. The Prohibition party policy differs from 
that of both the old parties from constable to President. 
Let us get this fact firmly, immutably fixed, and stand 
by it 

Now, is the game worth the ammunition? Is there just 
cause for seeking such a turning around and upside down 
of the present arder of things ? Do the best interests of 
our people demand such radical change of governmental 



Abolition — Prohibition. 123 

policy? You have heard this question answered hundreds 
of times. If you are a Prohibitionist you have already 
answered it by coming into the Prohibition party. If you 
have answered that prohibition is right, then the traffic is 
wrong, and you must choose between following a policy 
and practice that is right and rejecting one that is wrong; 
or rejecting the right and following the wrong. There is 
no escaping that situation. 

Is there a need of such a change of governmental policy 
and the establishment of the one that we advocate ? Go 
and ask the one hundred thousand hopeless, desperate, 
groaning wretches sinking into the horrors of a drunkard's 
grave and a drunkard's hell every year. 

Go hear the multitudes of despairing, starving, wretched 
women and children crying for deliverance. 

Go to the cemetery and count the one hundred thousand 
graves made since this time a year ago, over which no 
tears of love and pity could be shed, no tender memories 
be cherished, or fond hopes be entertained of a happy 
reunion in a better world beyond the skies because "No 
drunkards enter there " 

Go to the charnel-houses of human woe, passion, crime, 
curses, ruia, degradation, and think of things too horrible 
to be imagined. Did you ever look at a picture of a man 
with delirium tremens surrounded by shapes that made 
your blood run cold to look at, such a picture that you 
would not want to see soon before going to bed for fear 
you might dream about it? Did you ever see a picture 
of the sun, and then did you look at the fiery orb of day 
and compare the picture with the original? 

View the political corruption and degeneracy that has 
its birth in the saloon. Listen to the ranting, blood-thirsty 
Anarchists, whose school room is the saloon. School room, 
did I say? Yes, and Sabbath school room; for they are 
now gathering the children of the city of Chicago into 
Sunday schools to be taught that Spies and Parsons were 



124 Solid Shot. 

martyrs, that Christ was a vagabond, that society is a myth, 
marriage a farce, home a brothel, the Sabbath a day for 
revelry, Heaven — there is none. And these schools, every 
one of them are held adjoining a saloon. 

We can not long endure as a nation in the way whither 
we are tending, yea, already traveling at a maddening 
pace. We already tread the verge of a volcano whose 
warning rumblings bid us flee for safety. We must change 
course or be engulfed in hopeless ruin. A terrible up- 
heaval is coming. The heavens are already brassy with 
the omens of destruction. If our republic is to live we 
must change front, and that right speedily. 

Yes, a thousand times yes, the cause is worthy the 
tremendous undertaking we propose in its behalf. 

But how, oh, how shall we move the people? How shall 
we get enough of them to think as we think, see as we 
see, and be willing to act so as to direct and control the 
administration of the government along these lines ? 
Shall we ever be able to put our purposes into execution? 
Yes. When? I d*> not know. Sooner than we think, in 
all probability. How ? By the creation of a right pub- 
lic opinion in the matter; which is simply causing a 
majority of the people to have convictions upon this 
question deep enough to move them to act in accordance 
therewith. The how to do this is the key to success ; and 
along this line I wish to invite your careful attention. 

There is a common adage that history repeats itself; and 
many times we hear this statement as comparing the 
present Prohibition movement with the an ti slavery 
movement. But in most cases the application is made 
as to passing events only, and about as frequently as not, 
just when we want it to, history don't repeat itself. 

But there is a sense in which the comparison will show 
a most striking repetition of history. There is something 
more in history than a mere record of passing events. 
There is a controlling cause, under-currents of motive, 



Abolition — Prohibition. 125 

governing principles beneath the surface, and general 
results that srould be sought and noted. Motive princi- 
ples and grand results rather than passing events are to 
be considered in making our comparison. Upon this basis 
we will find in the Prohibition movement a wonderful 
resemblance to the anti- slavery movement. And for our 
edification, and encouragement, as well as for our profit, 
as thereby we may through an examination of the meth 
ods experiences and attainments of the makers of history 
in that movement catch some hints of how to produce 
results and what results to expect with given conditions, 
let us look a little over the past. 

No man ever had a clearer perception of the relation 
of deep native principles, or a keener prophetic vision of 
results on the slavery question than had Abraham Lin- 
coln. I have heard it said that he was only an ordinary 
Illinois lawyer of local reputation, and came to the 
Presidency almost by accident. But my reading of his- 
tory tells a far different story, Abraham Lincoln was the 
greatest man of the anti- slavery movement. His grasp, 
his discernment, his mastery of the under- current of 
principles that control in moral as well as in political 
affairs, were unequalled by any of his co laborers. His 
elevation to the Presidency was no accident. He was the 
leader. No other man of the times was endowed like 
him. His words on many points read now almost as if 
inspired. And are they not as true now, are not the 
principles of truth enunciated as powerful, and the weap- 
ons of argument and persuasion as efficient now as then, 
in so far as moral and political relations are the same? 
Times and seasons and surroundings change, but human 
nature never. It is always the same, yesterday, to day 
and forever. In December, 1856, just after the Presiden- 
tial; election of that year, in an address delivered at Chica- 
go, Mr. Lincoln said, and the same idea is repeated time 
and again in other addresses : 



126 Solid Shot, 

Our government rests on public opinion. Whoever can change public 
opinion can change the government practically just so much. Public 
opinion, on any subject, always has a "central idea," from which all its 
minor thoughts radiate. That "central idea" in our political public 
opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, "the 
equality of men." * * * The late Presidential election was a 
struggle by one party to discard that " central idea" and to substitute for 
it the opposite idea that slavery is right in the abstract, the workings of 
which as a "central idea" may be the perpetuity of human slavery and its 
extension to all countries and colors. * * * In the late contest 
we were divided between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come to- 
gether for the future? Let every one who really believes, and is resolved, 
that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscien- 
tiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought 
best, let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say 
as much. Thus let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; 
and with steady eyes on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old 
" central ideas " of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with 
us, God is with us. 

Does not that fit the case now admirably ? 

But let us look a little deeper and note briefly the situ- 
ation of the affairs of those times, as recorded by a recent 
and able historian, keeping in mind as we proceed the 
present situation and relation of forces and motive princi- 
ples in the great moral and political conflict that we cham- 
pion, noting the similarity ol conditions, tendencies, and — 
may we not say? — results. As Mr. Lincoln expressed it in 
the opening sentence of his great Springfield speech of 
June 17th, 1858: " If we could first know where we are, and 
whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, 
and how to do it." I quote from Nicolay and Hay's " Life 
of Lincoln:" 

It is now universally understood, if not conceded, that the rebellion of 
1861 was instigated, begun and carried on for the sole purpose of defending 
and preserving to the seceding States the institution of African slavery. 
* * * Both a real and pretended fear that slavery was in danger 
lay at the bottom of this design. The real fear arose from the palpable 
fact, impossible to conceal, that the slave system was a reactionary obsta- 
cle in the pathway of modern civilization and its political, material, phi- 
losophical, and religious development. The pretended danger was the 
permanent loss of political power by the slave States of the Union, as shown 



Abolition — Prohibition. 127 

in the election of Lincoln to the Presidency, which they averred would 
necessarily throw all the forces of national life against the "peculiar insti- 
tution," and crush it under forms of law. 

Find me any place in the Prohibition literature of to- 
day a more clear and succinct statement, present and 
prophetic, of the condition of the liquor forces. The 
political party of to-day that dares lift a finger against 
the will of the rum power of Cincinnati, of New York, of 
this nation must either expect immediate political death, 
or to face a party rebellion. Yea, the rum forces in our 
great cities are now, to-day, this very hour, in open, defiant 
rebellion against every law on our statute books that in 
the least affects their " peculiar institution." Do you see 
it? Read the daily papers. Do you realize it? The North, 
with excepting a few spasmodic outbursts, realized not 
what a devil they they were letting live and grow, until 
Fort Sumpter was fired upon ; nor what was his strength 
and determination until after Bull Run. 

But let us continue the history : 

The popular agitation, or war of words between the North and the South 
on the subject of slavery, which led to the armed insurrection, was three- 
fold : First, The economic effort to prevent the destruction of the monetary 
value of four millions of human beings held in bondage, who were bought 
and sold as chattels, and whose aggregate valuation, under circumstances 
existing at the outbreak of the civil war, was computed at $400,000,000; 
second, a moral debate as to the abstract righteousness or iniquity of the 
system ; and, third, a political struggle for the balance of power in govern- 
ment and public policy, by which the security and perpetuity of the insti- 
tution might be guaranteed. 

Does not that have a familiar ring ? 

Now place over against that, this language which I find 
in a recent number of The Pulpit Treasury, from an article 
on ; 'The Liquor Traffic— Magnitude of the Evil." The 
writer considers, first, that familiarity with the liquor 
curse blunts our sensibility and renders us indifferent to 
its enormity. He notes that tens of thousands of lives are 
consumed by it every year ; that the money cost of drink 
is, according to government statistics, over $800,000,000 



128 Solid Shot 

annually. Then he considers the outlay made necessary 
because of the standing army of crime that the traffic 
keeps up ; likewise the desolation, poverty, misery, curses, 
woe, left in its trail. And further he says: 

Nor is this all. In making up our estimate of the "magnitude" of this 
evil, we must take into account the allies with which it is leagued and the 
influences with which it is entrenched. 

One of these is appetite. And this includes not merely the great army 
of habitual drinkers, but millions more, both men and women, who take a 
glass of wine or champaign betimes, socially, but who have nevertheless 
already formed the appetite, and are not willing to have their liberty in 
this matter abridged ! This is the first division of the grand army back of 
the saloon ! 

Another of these allies is wealth. Money accumulated and money in^the 
traffic itself. For no line of business we find yields so large a per centage 
of profit, in proportion to the capital invested. Of the liquor traffic it may 
truthfully be said that there are "Millions in it," and these millions are its 
willing allies always at command in every contest. The total value of the 
liquor business of the country, plant and all, is estimated at $1,200,000,000 ! 
This is the second division behind the saloon ! 

And the third is influence. Influence in high places and low. At the 
ballot box and in legislative halls. Through the press, and on the plat- 
form ; in the pulpit, and in the pew ! Reaching out its ubiquitous fingers it 
touches every profession and trade, and with its despotic wand it either 
intimidates men to silence or commands their positive co-operation. 

These are the three "great powers," (Wealth, Appetite and Influence) 
with which this traffic is entrenched and fortified ! * * * Never 
since slavery lifted its brazen front and shook its finger defiantly in the 
face of freedom, and fired at length on the old flag, have the friends of 
right in this land been called to measure arms with such a foe! * * 

* * And we shall be more than unwise if we fail to ascertain, or 
thoughtlessly underestimate the strength of the enemy in our front. 

Now to return to the history for a moment : 

All the States tolerated slavery and permitted the slave-trade during 
the Revolution. But in most of them the morality of the system was 
strongly drawn in question, especially by the abolition societies which 
embraced many of the most prominent patriots. A public opinion, not 
indeed unanimous, but largely in the majority, demanded that the "neces- 
sary evil" should cease. * * * When the constitutional conven- 
tion met in Philadelphia, the slavery question seemed for months an irre- 
concilable element of discord in the convention. * * * And out 
of these divergent views grew the compromises of the constitution, * 
* * by which the conscience of the North was quieted. 




WILBER COLVIN, OF OHIO. 



Abolition — Prohibition. 129 

Now, my friends, go and read the proceedings of the 
constitutional convention of Ohio that gave us our present 
State constitution, and see what "an irreconcilable 
element of discord " in it was the liquor question. And 
was not their action a greater compromise even in this 
matter than was that of the Philadelphia convention upon 
the slavery question? Yea, verily! The Ohio conven- 
tion could not even agree on a compromise, and submitted 
a choice of compromises to the people of the State, legis- 
lative regulation with license or without license, to decide 
if they could which they would accept. 

But the slavery agitation increased in power and vio- 
lence. Says the historian : 

Involving not merely a policy of government but a question of abstract 
morals, statesmen, philanthropists, divines, the press, societies, churches, 
and legislative bodies joined in the discussion. Slavery was assailed and 
defended in behalf of the welfare of the State, and in the name of religion. 

* * * It obtruded itself into all manner of questions. * * 

* In several States it had instigated abuse, intolerance, perse- 
cutions, trials, mobs, murders, destruction of property, imprisonment of 
freemen, retaliatory legislation, and one well-defined and formidable at- 
tempt at revolution. It originated party factions, political schools, and 
constitutional doctrines, and made and marred the fame of great states- 
men. 

But the statesmen of that day settled the question — on 
paper— just as the statesmen of to-day are now burying 
the Prohibition party and the Prohibition agitation out of 
sight forever. 

The New York Tribune, as the mouthpiece of the 
Republican party, proposed a way, and the only way, it 
says, to settle the liquor question in that State last fall. 
The Tribune of October 17, 1888, declared, editorially: 

But, however it got in, the temperance question is in politics, and it is 
there to stay until it is satisfactorily settled. There is one way to take it 
out, and only one. * * * That is to elect a Republican Governor 
and a Republican Assembly this Fall. Then a high license bill * * 

* will be promptly enacted. * * * As soon as the high 
license law has been in operation a reasonable time, the great mass of the 
Democratic party will see that it is a wise and salutary measure, one in 

ix 



130 Solid Shot 

the interest of good morals and low taxes. * * * And most of 
them would be as prompt as the Republicans to resist any effort to destroy 
it. When this stage has been reached the temperance question will be 
practically out of politics here, as it is in other States where high license 
exists. * * * Anyone who is anxious to take the temperance 
question out of politics can see just how to do it. * * * But, on 
the other hand [if the high license advocates are not elected], the agitation 
will continue, and it will not cease until we get a high license law, for the 
law-abiding classes of this State are determined to have it. 

And the Tribune should have added, the liquor men 
also will be satisfied with such a law. Yea, they too are 
determined to have it. For did not Peter Her, President 
of the Liquor Dealers' Association of Nebraska, and prob- 
ably the largest whisky distiller in America, declare : 

High license has not hurt our business, but on the contrary has been of 
great benefit to it. * * * And I believe if it were put to a vote 
of the liquor dealers and saloon men of this State, [Nebraska, where the 
license is $1,000 per year], whether it should be high license, low license, or 
no license, that they would almost unanimously be for high license. 

The Missouri Compromise of 1850 took the slavery 
question out of politics, and put a " finality '' upon the 
anti- slavery agitation. That was to say, slavery should 
not come north of 36° 30', but might do as it pleased south 
of that line. A pretty fair sample of a high license law, 
wasn't it? And Stephen A. Douglass said in a speech in 
the United States Senate in support of this "finality:" 

In taking leave of this subject I wish to state that I have determined 
never to make another speech upon the slavery question. * * * 
We claim that the compromise is a final settlement. 

And again. Senator Douglass described the Compromise 
as being "canonized in the hearts of the American people 
as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be 
reckless enough to disturb." 

Both the Whig and Democratic National conventions 
of 1852 solemnly resolved in their platforms, that they 
would discountenance and resist, in Congress or out of it, 
whenever, wherever, or however, or under whatever color 
or shape, any further renewal of the slavery agitation . 

Now, how would a sentiment in accordance with the 



Abolition — Prohibition. , 131 

plan proposed by the Tribune sound along side of these 
solemn and profound declarations : 

Pass a high license law and the question will be practically out of poli- 
tics, and the agitation will cease; for the law-abiding people, the good 
people, the saloon people, everybody will be fully satisfied and will 
promply resist any further renewal of the liquor agitation. 

Or this: 

We know that the principles of regulation and taxation * * * 
are eternal and will stand; and to these principles of regulation and taxa- 
tion of the liquor traffic, be it known of all men, the Republican party is 
unalterably committed. 

Did the question stay settled ? Was there no renewal 
of the slavery agitation? Did Douglass ever make any 
more speeches about slavery ? Was it a " finality ?" Go 
ask at the half a million homes turned into houses of 
mourning because there is a vacant chair. Go to the 
Soldiers' Homes scattered over the country, and ask the 
thousands of maimed and blind, wrecks of vigorous man- 
hood, all hopes and ambitions blasted by disease and 
wounds, — simply waiting until the final call shall sum- 
mons them to cross the dark river. Go read the epitaph 
on half a million grave stones, and look at the thousands 
of nameless mounds scattered along every hillside and 
valley in the sunny Southland. 

Was it settled by the compromise of 1850 ? Did the 
compromise of the constitution settle it, or Senator Doug- 
lass' great principle of popular sovereignty ?• Go ask fair 
Columbia, weeping at the bier of half a million of her 
choicest sons whose life blood was required to wash away 
the curse and cover its stain, what it cost to settle the 
question and still the agitation that was not settled right 
in the beginning as it should have been. And if the grand 
heart and conscience of this people do not speedily rise 
up in their might and relentlessly crush out this other 
curse, this rum demon, we will pay the penalty in blood 
and tears and treasure proportionately greater as twelve 
hundred million dollars is to four hundred million dollars. 



132 Solid Shot • 

Stay settled ? No. It was not settled right. Senator 
Douglass himself in less than four years introduced the 
" Nebraska Bill " to settle it over again. 

During this "finality" period a newspaper epigram 
which has become famous appeared. Let me read it: 

To kill twice dead a rattlesnake, 
And ofl his scaly skin to take, 
And through his head to drive a stake, 
And every bone within him break, 
And of his flesh mincemeat to make, 
To burn, to sear, to boil, and bake, 
Then in a heap the whole to rake, 
And over it the besom shake, 
And sink it fathoms in the lake— 
Whence alter all, quite wide awake, 
Comes back that very same old snake ! 

We have lately been told with a great flourish of trump- 
ets that " The death-knell of Prohibition has been 
sounded." " Political prohibition is dead" — "'■ deader than 
a door nail." " There will be no Prohibition party and 
no Prohibition national ticket in 1892." '■ Prohibition 
has had all the day it will ever have in the United States." 
" Prohibition is beaten." " The disturbing element is at 
rest." And Bon fort's Wine and Spirit Circular [liquor 
paper] exultantly says: 

Prohibition, in a word, is done for; and no art or power can now save 
it from that ignominious grave which was dug wide and deep for persecu- 
tions and for fanaticism when the charter of our liberties made this a free 
people. 

Friends, and neighbors, don't get " flurried " and be in 
too great haste about the " burying." " She is not dead, 
but sleepeth/' 

Listen: During this period, from 1850 to 1854, an anti- 
abolition wave swept over the country. The Abolition 
vote decreased from 291,342 for Van Buren, in 1848, to 
155,825, in 1852, for Hale. There was a strange relaxation 
of moral sensitiveness on the slavery question. Mr. 
Greeley in his "American Conflict " says : 



Abolition — Prohibition. 133 

But, whatever theoretic or practical objections may be justly made to 
the Compromise of 1850, there can be no doubt that it was accepted and 
ratified by a great majority of the American people, whether in the North 
or in the South. They were intent on business — then remarkably prosper- 
ous — on planting, building, trading, and getting gain, and they hailed with 
general joy the announcement that all the differences between the diverse 
"sections" had been adjusted and settled. The terms of the settlement 
were, to that majority, of quite subordinate consequence; they wanted 
peace and prosperity. 

The same spirit of cupidity then prevailed as is now 
willing, even anxious, to have the saloons licensed or 
taxed to help bear the burden of taxation. And remem- 
ber that this was the period when slave hunting under the 
infamous fugitive slave law of 1850 was being carried on 
with greatest activity and brutality. Even the great Daniel 
Webster surrendered to pro slavery ; abandoning his pre- 
vious life long anti- slavery position, he, in- his celebrated 
speech of March 7, 1850, substantially conceded the 
demands of the slave power. In announcing his determ- 
ination to vote for the fugitive slave bill he declared : 

I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all 
conscientious men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical 
idea, or some false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put 
it to all the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals 
and a question of conscience. 

And Mr. Greeley says : 

And on this theme he discoursed every variation, in speeches, in letters 
and in personal intercourse, during the brief remainder of his life. And 
every "conservative" pulpit and rostrum resounded with feebler and duller 
imitations, in drift and substance, of this language — the purport of all be- 
ing that whoever failed to do "with alacrity" whatever he could toward 
securing the return of fugitive slaves to their masters, was guilty of a 
flagrant breach, not only of constitutional, but of moral obligation. 

And says another writer : 

And the "machines" of both the old parties, to the last nail and screw, 
did service to the slavery god. There was scarcely a leading old party 
paper in the land that did not shout the praises of the compromise meas- 
ures. * * * Then a chorus even more united than that to which 
we now listen went up from the press, "Abolition is dead." "This is the 
last of the abolition fanaticism." "We will hear no more of it." "Now 
we shall have peace." 



134 Solid Shot , 

Oh, ye of little wisdom ! Blind leaders of the blind 
when a moral truth is at stake! The death knell that you 
hear, and the grave that you see are for the old parties 
who are too feeble to handle this question ! In four short 
years after the cry "Abolition is dead," General Fremont 
received over a million and a third votes, and in four years 
more Abraham Lincoln was elected President on an anti- 
slavery platform ; and in less than three years later 
slavery was wiped out forevei . 

Now follow the history again : 

But the South was not content. Encouraged by the deprecatory atti- 
tude of their opponents, and impelled by economic considerations, the 
leaders of the slavery interest undertook to make the whole power of the 
government subservient to their will ; to break down the land-marks which, 
with their own consent, had been set up; and to change the political 
standing of slavery from that of a local institution, existing in virtue of 
municipal law, * * * to that of a National institution, existing 
in virtue of the constitution, and protected everywhere by the National 
flag. * * * Working remorselessly toward their end, and having 
already almost entirely the political leadership in their several States, they 
boldly assumed the control of Southern social and political aftairs. They 
brought the press of their own States into entire subserviency to their 
purposes ; * * * they managed to exclude from political prefer- 
ment all rising men who were not heart and soul devoted to that faction. 
By all manner of misrepresentation and craft they exasperated their 
numerous poor slaveless dependents against the Abolitionists. 

Is not this history being now strikingly repeated ? 

On the 23d of January, 1854, Senator Douglass intro- 
duced his " Nebraska Bill," declaring the Missouri compro- 
mise of 1850 " inoperative and void ; it being the true 
intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery 
into any territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, 
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and 
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, 
subject only to the constitution." 

The historian says: 

The storm of agitation which this measure aroused dwarfed all former 
ones in depth and intensity. The South was nearly united in its behalf, 
the North sadly divided in opposition. * * The boasted 



Abolition — Prohibition. 135 

"finality" was a broken reed; the life-boat of compromise a hopeless wreck. 
* * * The slavery question became paramount in every State in 
the Union. * * * Men were for or against the bill— every other 
political subject was left in abeyance. 

The measure once passed, and the Compromise repealed, the first 
natural impulse was to combine, organize and agitate for its restoration. 
This -was the ready-made common ground of co-operation. 

A good sample of the modem, so-called, non-partisan 
arrangement. Note carefully what follows : 

It is probable that this merely defensive energy would have been over- 
come and dissipated, had it not at this juncture been inspired and led by 
the faction known as the Free-Soil party of the country, composed mainly 
of men of independent anti-slavery views, who had now during four 
Presidential campaigns been organized as a distinct political body, with 
no near hope of success, but animated mainly by the desire to give ex- 
pression to their deep personal convictions. * * * There was no 
mistaking the earnestness ot the body of this faction. A few fanatical 
men, who had made it the vehicle of violent expressions, had kept it under 
the ban of popular prejudice. It had long been held up to public odium as 
a revolutionary band of "abolitionists." * * * Despite all ob- 
juration and contempt, however, it had become since 1840 a constant 
factor and a growing influence in politics. It had operated as a negative 
balance of power in the last two Presidential elections, causing, by its 
diversion of votes, and more especially by its relaxing influences upon 
parties, the success of the Whig candidate, General Taylor, in 1848, and 
the Democratic nominee, Franklin Pierce, in 1852. 

That is to say, the charge is that the Free-Soilers beat 
Cass in 1848, and let Pierce get elected in 1852; just as 
we Prohibitionists are charged with beating Blaine in 
1884, and then allowing Harrison to be elected in 1888. 

The historian continues : 

This small army of anti-slavery veterans, over one hundred and fifty- 
eight thousand voters in the aggregate, and distributed in detachments of 
from three thousand to thirty thousand in twelve of the free States, now 
came to the front with spirit and alacrity, and with its newspapers and 
speakers trained in the discussion of the subject, and its committees and 
affiliations already in action and correspondence, bore the brunt of the 
fight. * * * Hitherto its aims had appeared Utopian, and its 
resolves had been denunciatory and exasperating. Now, however, com- 
bining wisdom with opportunity, it became conciliatory. * * * 
It labored specially to bring about the dissolution of the old party organ 
izations and the formation of a new one. * * * For the presen 



136 Solid Shot. , 

party disintegration was slow; men were reluctant to abandon their old- 
time principles and associations. * * * And public opinion 
was fearfully tyranical and intolerant. 
******** 

The old rattlesnake was again alive, defiant, and ready 
for business. 

The alarm of the Nation by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was 
serious and startling. All ranks and occupations therefore joined with 
new energy in the contest it provoked. 

Particularly was the religious sentiment of the North profoundly 
moved by the moral question involved- Perhaps for the first time in our 
modern politics, the pulpit vied with the press, and the church with the 
campaign club, in the work of debate and propagandism. 

" The very inception of the struggle had provoked bit- 
ter words,'' says the historian. " Abolition confederates," 
" plotting," " in the name of holy religion," " perverting," 
" apostates," "renegades," "fanatics," "incendiaries," 
" traitors," &c, &c, ad infinitum. 

I wonder if Halstead don't look over the literature of 
that day occasionally to get choice names for us Prohibi- 
tionists. 

Continues the historian : 

The key-notes of the discussion thus given were well sustained on both 
sides, and crimination and recrimination increased with the heat and 
intensity of the campaign. * * * Unusual acrimony grew out 
of the zeal of the Church and its ministers. The clergymen of the Northern 
States not only spoke * * * from their pulpits, but forwarded 
energetic petitions * * * to Congress. In return, Douglas 
made a most virulent onslaught on their political action. "Here we find," 
he retorted, "that a large body of preachers, * * * have here 
come forward with an atrocious falsehood, and an atrocious calumny 
against this Senate, desecrated the pulpit, and prostituted the sacred desk 
to the miserable and corrupting influence of party politics." 

Seems to me that I have heard something like that re- 
cently. 
And the historian continues: 

All his [Douglass's] newspapers and partisans throughout the country 
caught the style and spirit of his warfare, and boldly denied the right of 
the clergy to take part in politics otherwise than by a silent vote. 



Abolition — Prohibition. 137 

The descendants of these fellows are to be met with 
even unto this day; and they are every one of them 
" chips off the old block." 

But they [the clergy], on the other hand, persisted all the more earnestly 
in justifying their interference in moral questions wherever they appeared. 

Oh, that their descendants were more numerous now. 

" Popular sovereignty " was the dignified term that Sen- 
ator Douglass applied to the great principle enunciated 
in his " Nebraska Bill." " Squatter sovereignty," his op- 
ponents called it. He claimed in a great speech at Chi- 
cago in September, 1854, and later elsewhere in many 
speeches, " that the slavery question was forever settled 
by his great principle of popular sovereignty, which took 
it out ol Congress and gave it to the people of the terri- 
tories to decide as they pleased." The present local option 
principle to the letter. You will notice that this was the 
second "finality." Some of our Prohibitionists are still 
flirting with local option; they have all given up high 
license. But she is no good. Don't waste your time 
there. 

In this connection I cannot forbear to repeat the words 
of William H. Seward in a speech at Kochester, N. Y., in 
1858. Speaking of Slavery and Freedom, he said : 

These antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact 
and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means ? They 
who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or 
fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. 
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces; 
and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become 
either entirely a slave-holding Nation, or entirely a free-labor Nation. * 
* * It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so 
many unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between the slave and 
free States; and it is the existence of this great fact that renders all such 
pretended compromises, when made, vain and ephemeral. 

Prohibitionists, stand by your colors. Don't be allured 
by any tempting compromises, or disturbed if they 
"revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of 
evil against you falsely." 



138 Solid Shot 

Say, my Republican friend, do you suppose that you 
have something new on us when you tell us that we are 
k ' throwing away our votes," or that we are an " aid 
society?" Why, that was hurled at the anti-slavery men 
before you were born. Mr. Greeley, in his " American 
Conflict," declares, in speaking of the presidential vote 
of 1844, when, as you know, Mr. Clay was defeated by the 
loss of the State of New York on a plurality for Mr. Polk 
considerably less than the vote cast for Mr. Birney: 

One-third of the intensely anti-slavery votes thrown away on Birney 
would have given the state to Mr. Clay and elected him. The vote of 
Michigan was, in like manner^ given to Polk by the diversion of anti- 
slavery suffrages to Birney. * * * So the triumph of annexa- 
tion had been secured by the direct aid of the more intense partisans of 
abolition. 

Mr. Greeley would have come nearer the whole truth if 
he had said that the " neither for nor against " policy of 
Mr. Clay upon the slavery question as shown by his letter 
published in The Northern Alabamian during the cam- 
paign, in which he said, concerning the annexation of 
Texas : 

I do not think that the subject of slavery ought to affect the question 
one way or the other. 

lost him the Presidency. Mr. Greeley says that this dec- 
laration of Mr. Clay u was most embarrassing" to the 
Whigs, " who opened the canvass of 1844 with signal ani- 
mation and confidence, and believed that they could not 
be beaten." 

Other " artful dodgers " and " straddlers " have found, 
and will find, their positions on the saloon question " most 
embarrassing." 

Again, my Republican neighbor, did you ever hear or 
sav something like this : 

44 The gentlemen who have joined this new party, from 
among the Republicans, pretend that they are greater 
lovers of temperance and greater haters of the saloon 
than those they leave behind them. I do not admit it* 



Abolition — Prohibition. 139 

I do not admit any such thing. I think we are as good 
Prohibitionists as they are, though we do not set up any 
such great pre-eminence over our neighbors." 

In a speech at Abington, Mass., Oct. 9, 1848, when Mar 
tin Van Buren was the candidate for President on the 
anti-slavery ticket, Daniel Webster said: 

The gentlemen who have joined this new party, from among the Whigs, 
pretend that they are greater lovers of liberty and greater haters of slavery 
than those they leave behind them. I do not admit it. I do not admit any 
such thing. I think we are as good Free-Soil men as they are, though we 
do not set up any such great pre-eminence over our neighbors. 

And in the same speech Mr. Webster accused the Free- 
Soilers of being a u Democratic aid society." So don't be 
alarmed, my Prohibition brethren, when they tell us that 
we are helping the liquor men, and then in the same 
breath assure us that they are as good Prohibitionists as 
we are, but don't want to throw away their votes. These 
are old, old stories. The boys would say, u Chestnuts." 

And hear, Prohibitionists, some of you who have enter- 
tained the hope of in some manner bringing the bulk of 
the Republican or Democratic party either, into the Pro- 
hibition ranks at one fell swoop. Listen to what Mr. 
Webster said in this same speech : 

Suppose all the Whigs should go over to the Free-Soil party : It would 
only be a change of name; the principles would still be the same. But 
there would be one change which, I admit, would be monstrous— it would 
make Mr. Van Buren the head of the Whig party. 

Has not Bro. Thompson, here, through the New Eka, 
and some of the rest of us " straight-jackets'" told you 
time and again that such a movement would be folly ? 
The Prohibition party would be swallowed up and would 
be the old Republican or Democratic party under a new 
name; the old Republican elephant with a blanket over 
it, or the Democratic tiger in a sheep's skin. 

" Ye must be born again " into the Prohibition party 
faith : Prohibition with a Prohibition party behind it ; 



140 Solid Shot 

this nation must be sober as well as free by law. Hear ye 
the battle call ! 

But now to resume our history of " squatter sovereign- 
ty " times: At about this period appeared upon the scene 
of conflict a personage, — a force, whose memory will be 
cherished, and whose name will be revered as long as 
humanity shall remember history, — Abraham Lincoln. 
And his seemingly almost inspired words and arguments, 
so keen, clear, elevated, patriotic, prophetic, wise, areas 
true, as applicable now as then. Let us weigh well what 
is to follow. In it is the golden key to the success of our 
cause. 

The address from which I shall now quote was Lincoln's 
speech in the debate with Senator Douglass at Peoria, 111 , 
in October, 1854, one of the first in that historic series of 
debates between Lincoln and Douglass covering a period 
of three or four years, — a veritable battle of giants, the 
supreme representatives of two u central ideas " of gov- 
ernmental policy respecting the slavery question. And 
this speech is also one of the very few political speeches 
that Mr. Lincoln ever wrote out in full. 

Mr. Lincoln's biographer says concerning it: 

After the lapse of a quarter of a century the critical reader still finds it 
a model of brevity, directness, terse diction, exact and lucid historical 
statement, and full of logical propositions so short and so strong as to re- 
semble mathematical axioms. Above all it is pervaded by an elevation of 
thought and aim that lifts it out of the commonplace of mere party contro- 
versy. * * * It contained not only the argument of the hour, 
but the premonition of the broader issues into which the new struggle was 
destined soon to expand. The main, broad current of his reasoning was to 
vindicate and restore the policy of the fathers of the country in the restric- 
tion of slavery ; but running through this like a thread of gold was the 
demonstration of the essential injustice and immorality of the system. 

Mr. Lincoln said : 

Slavery is founded on the selfishness of men's nature— opposition to it 
in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism. 

* Repeal the Missouri Compromise — repeal all compromises— re- 
peal the Declaration of Independence — repeal all past history — still you 
cannot repeal human nature. * * * I particularly object to the 



Abolition — Prohibition. 141 

new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska Law gives to 
slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there 
can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it 
as a dangerous dalliance for a free people, — a sad evidence that feeling 
prosperity, we forget right. * * * The doctrine of self-govern- 
ment is right— absolutely and eternally right — but it has no just applica- 
tion as here attempted. * * * This declared indifference, * 
* * for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of 
the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it * * * 
causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity ; and especially 
because it forces so many really good men among ourselves into open war 
with the fundamental principles of civil liberty, '* . * * * * 
and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest. 

Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have given 
up the old for the new faith. Nearly eighty years ago we began by de- 
claring that all men are created equal ; but now from that beginning we 
have run down to the other declaration that for some men to enslave others 
is a "sacred right of self-government." These principles cannot stand to- 
gether. They are as opposite as God and mammon. * * * 

Our Kepublican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify 
it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit if not the blood of the 
Revolution. * * * Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and the practices and policy which harmonize with it. * * * 
If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union, but we shall have 
so saved it, so as to make and keep it forever worthy of the saving. 

Is not that a perfect epitome of the situation now as 
well as then? 

The severe agitation of this period marks the general 
disintegration of old party lines. Men were being forced 
to take sides on this question. Mr. Lincoln, in a letter to 
a friend in August, 1855, explicitly states the issue, and 
shows that he had reached maturity of conviction upon 
it. He writes: 

Our political problem now is, "Can we as a Nation continue together 
permanently,— forever— half slaves, and half free?" * * I think 
that there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us. * * 
The Autocrat of all the Russians will resign his crown and proclaim his 
subjects free republicans, sooner than will our American masters volun- 
tarily give up their slaves. 

Douglass, on the contrary, was haranguing his party to 

Stand by the doctrine that leaves the people perfectly free to form and 
regulate their institutions for themselves, in their own way, and your 



142 Solid Shot, 

party will be united and irresistible in power. Abandon that great prin- 
ciple and the party * * * can not be saved. * * * You 
have no more right to force a free-State constitution on Kansas than a 
slave-State constitution. If Kansas wants a slave-State constitution she 
has a right to it; if she wants a free-State constitution she has a right to 
it. It is none of my business which way the slave clause is decided. I 
care not whether it is voted down or voted up. 

Does not that sound natural? Make no issue on the 
temperance question ; keep it out of politics ; it is none of 
my business whether the next town or State goes " wet " 
or " dry.'' Do not offend the saloon men, care not whether 
whiskey is voted in or voted out, and " your party will be 
united and irresistible in power." 

Listen to Lincoln's keen, searching words: 

He [Douglass] says he "don't care whether it is voted up or voted 
down " in the Territories. * * * Any man can say that who 
does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it 
who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don't 
care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't 
care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logic- 
ally have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends 
that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they 
have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he can not say people have 
a right to do wrong. * * * And if there be among you anybody 
who supposes that he, as a Democrat, can consider himself " as much 
opposed to slavery as anybody," I would like to reason with him. You 
never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong 
do you deal with as you deal with that? Perhaps you say it is a wrong, 
but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it is 
wrong. Although you pretend to say so yourself, you can find no fit place 
to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say anything about it in the 
free States, because it is not here. You must not say anything about in the 
slave States, because it is there. You must not say anything about it in 
the pulpit, because that is religion, and has nothing to do with it. You 
must not say anything about it in politics, because that will disturb the 
the security of "my place." * * * You may turn over every- 
thing in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, * * * it 
everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it. 
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country 
when these poor tongues of Judge Douglass and myself shall be silent. It 
is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong- 
throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to 
face from the beginning of time ; and will ever continue to struggle. 



Abolition — Prohibition. 143 

Is not this the golden key that Lincoln, that all the 
reformers of the ages have used to unlock the rock-bound 
citadels of evil, of prejudice, of passion, of avarice? 
Appeal to Conscience. Appeal to Conscience! Brush 
away the webs and rubbish and gilded coverings of soph 
istry, and bring the question right into the doors of the 
conscience of the people. 

Prohibitionists, let us study this question. Let us study 
how to thrust it right into the doors of conscience. Let 
us learn of our fathers. Let us be not side tracked into 
local, trivial, visionary controversies. Let us build our 
arguments on enduring principles, and strive to lead 
public opinion to loftier and nobler conceptions of politi- 
cal duty. 

Ponder well this idea from one of Mr. Lincoln's latest 



Present the question of planting a State with the institution of slavery 
by the side of a question of who shall he Governor of Kansas for a year or 
two, and is there a man here, is there a man on earth, who would not say 
the Governor question is the little one, and the slavery question is the great 
one? 

Mr. Lincoln rested his political arguments upon the 
bed-rock of the Declaration of Independence; and all 
through them like a thread of gold, giving its ]uster even 
unto the remotest parts, shone the moral aspect of the 
question. The final test put to/ every position was, " Is it 
right ?" Listen as he applies this test in his great Cooper 
Institute speech in New York City, in February before his 
nomination for the Presidency : 

If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it are 
themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. * * * 
But thinking it wrong as we do, * * * can we cast our votes 
with their view and against our own ? In view of our moral, social, and 
political responsibilities, can we do this? * * * Then let us 
stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none 
of those sophistical contrivances wherewitn we are so industriously plied 
and belabored, contrivances such as groping for some middle grouDd be- 
tween the right and the wrong 1 , vain as the search for a man who shall 



144 Solid Shot. 

neither be a living man nor a dead man, such as a policy of "don't care," 
on a question about which all true men do care. * * * Neither 
let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor 
frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of 
dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in 
that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. 

And we cannot better close this part of this discussion 
than by quoting from the closing words of Mr. Lincoln's 
great Springfield speech. It is a battle-call : 

Our cause then must be intrusted to and conducted by its own un- 
doubted friends, those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, 
who do care for the result. * * * The result is not doubtful. 
We shall not fail — if we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels may 
accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to 
come. 

When will our victory come? you almost involuntarily 
ask. " How long, oh Lord, how long?" has doubtless run 
through the mind of almost every Prohibitionist, and 
many others as well, many, many times. I am not a 
prophet ; but note carefully a few points of history: Not 
withstanding all the agitation of the Free-Soilers and Ab 
olitionists, and the searching appeals of Lincoln and his 
coadjutors, the people were far from the point of crushing 
out slavery under forms of law, even when Lincoln was 
elected and inaugurated President. The spirit of concili- 
ation and compromise was predominant in the North. 
Even when the slave holding States were openly plotting 
treason and rebellion, going out of the Union, and organ- 
izing the Southern Confederacy, the North seemed to be 
asleep, and to have no due realization of the gravity of 
the situation. 

Mr. Lincoln's latest biographer says upon this matter: 

It will hardly be possible for the readers of history in our day to com- 
prehend the state of public sentiment in the United States during the 
month of March, 1861. The desire for peace; the hope of compromise; the 
persistent disbelief in the extreme purposes of the South ; and, strongest of 
all, a certain National lethargy, utterly impossible to account for,— all 
marked a positive decadence in patriotic feelings. * * * Under 
the spell of such a political nightmare the revolution had been half accom- 




JOHN B. FINCH, OF ILLINOIS. 



Abolition — Prohibition. 145 

plished. The Union flag had been tired upon, the Federal laws defied, the 
secession government organized and inaugurated. * * * The 
conservative sentiment of the country protested against everything but 
concession. * * * The times were "out of joint." Public opin- 
ion was awry. Treason was applauded and patriotism rebuked. Laws 
were held to be offenses, and officials branded as malefactors. In Lincoln's 
own forcible simile, "sinners were calling the righteous to repentance." 

Then hear this from an editorial in a recent number of 
the Cincinnati Times-Star : 

What do we see in Cincinnati as the latest development of saloon law- 
lessness? A notorious saloon on Walnut street, the resort of anarchists, 
is opened in defiance of the Sunday law. Two policemen, in pursuance of 
instructions from their superiors, enter the place to arrest the proprietor. 
They are fiercely attacked by a gang of bloody-minded wretches who hate 
all government and who are enraged at the sight of a police uniform. A 
man who resembles a prominent member of the Law and Order League, 
while quietly walking along Vine street, is assaulted, knocked down and 
brutally beaten because of his supposed activity in behalf of the Sunday 
closing law. Two gentlemen who have more regard for law than for Sun- 
day beer-guzzling go into a concert saloon to take observations, and the 
mob gathered there rush forward, furiously yelling, " Lynch them, lynch 
them!" Well known citizens interested in the law and order movement 
receive threatening ietters. Jurors are intimidated. 

A newspaper, reproducing this, heads it, " Worse than 
the South." Comment is unnecessary. 

Not until Fort Sumpter was bombarded did the country- 
awaken from the dreadful political nightmare that had so 
long tormented and paralyzed it. But the awakening, 
though sudden, was complete. Men whose consciences 
had been touched but not moved by the keen, stirring 
appeals of Lincoln and his co-laborers were now supremely 
alive. But while they had been passive and quiescent, 
knowing their duty, but heeding not to do it, slavery was 
active, organizing, defensive, and perpetually aggressive, 
until, flushed with its own victories, emboldened by the 
inertia of those whom it knew were naturally opposed to 
it, and relentlessly hating the agitators against it, it made 
bold to discover its brazen, daring, iniquitous plans, and 
undertook to not only insure its perpetuity, but to strike 
down all not in sympathy with it. 
x 



146 Solid Shot 

Did you ever consider the fact that the North sat pas- 
sively by and allowed the slave States to plot treason, or- 
ganize rebellion, inaugurate a slave Confederacy, raise an 
army, build forts, and only made resistance and undertook 
to subdue the insurrection after the insurgents, in the 
bombardment of Sumpter, had twice fired upon the stars 
and stripes, and for the third time made active, aggressive 
war upon the United States, to say nothing of menaces 
and insults without number? Had the great heart and 
conscience of the North heeded the appeals and warnings 
of Lincoln, Chase, Greeley, Garrison, Phillips, and many 
others, we would not to day have to mourn the thousands 
slain and millions of treasure wasted in the most desper- 
ate intestine war of centuries. 

The forces are gathering for a more furious struggle. 
Precisely the same elements are at work as brought about 
the crisis in the Spring of 1861. The conscience of the 
masses, who are needed to crush out this rum demon, is 
sleeping: — yea, it is bordering on the nightmare state. 
The saloon forces are organizing, plotting mischief, trea 
son, rebellion. Do we see it? Many, very many will not 
heed even though they do ; and one of these fine days 
there will be a rude awakening. The rum forces, per- 
fectly organized, backed by immense wealth, fortified 
with British as well as American gold, flushed with 
victory, State after State conquered, believing themselves 
invincible, and that the masses will not combat, if not 
actually support them, restive under all restraints, bitterly, 
desperately hating all opposers to their designs, literally 
thirsting for the blood of all Prohibitionists, they will one 
day make a move or strike a blow that will resound around 
the world ; and our nightmare will be suddenly dispelled 
to find that home, country, humanity, and all that is made 
sacred by a Christian civilization are in immediate jeop- 
ardy, and will be saved only by the most desperate conflict 
of the ages. Unless there is a turn in the tide, the crisis is 



Abolition — Prohibition. ' 147 

not far off. Would that it could come before the rum 
forces are more fully organized and grown in power. 

Prohibitionists, we have in the settlement of this ques- 
tion all that we can attend to within the next decade. Do 
not, I pray you, worry, spoil your tempers, and spend 
your energies in wrangling over other questions that will 
be for settlement oy and by. The saloon question is here, 
and must be handled now. u A house divided against 
itself cannot stand;" and many a wise and necessary 
measure has been lost by being loaded down with " riders.'* 
It will take the united energy of every friend of sobriety 
in this nation to withstand and conquer the legions of 
Gambrinus. 

Friends, the hour for action, firm, powerful, heroic action 
is at hand. It is fearful to contemplate whither we are 
traveling with maddening speed. For God's sake, lor the 
sake of all that is dear to self, home and country, our 
countrymen must be aroused in this matter. The churches 
and the preachers, some of them, see the peril, but do not 
know what to do do. They are like men suddenly 
awakened to a great danger and do not know which way 
to turn. But shout the alarm louder and more terribly. 
Something must be done. A short time since I heard a 
prominent minister declare from his pulpit with great ve- 
hemence and agitation that, " The issue is upon us. 
Either this nation must go down under the ruin of the 
saloon power, or we must overthrow the saloon One or 
the other must go down. They cannot both stand togeth- 
er." But — oh, my! He was going to have the Lord do it 
all. The Lord, he said, put down slavery. Yes, he did, 
but he required men to do a tremendous amount of 
helping. 

Brethren and friends, let every one of us thoroughly 
wake up. I sometimes think that even we Prohibition- 
ists do not see this matter in half its dangerous propor- 
tions. Let us investigate, fill ourselves with information, 



148 Solid Shot , 

and cry aloud with desperation if need be, that others may- 
see and know and be moved to action. Do what Lincoln 
and others did from '54 to '60. Appeal to the conscience 
of the people. Awaken them if possible. Stay the tide ; 
scatter the rum forces and beat them in detail if it can be 
done. That is their tactics against us. But above all pro- 
claim the truth. Cry aloud and stay not, so if it be not 
possible to overtake and cut down the demon, that when 
he turns upon us the voice crying for help will not be 
strange, and the multitude will come up against the mighty 
with resistless power. And the result is not doubtful. 
We shall not fail ; if we do our duty we can not tail. The 
Lord reigneth. We are in the right; omniscience and 
omnipotence are on our side. " Speak unto the children 
of Israel that they go forward." 



REGULATION A FAILURE. 



THE ONLY REMEDY FOR THE DISEASE OF THE NATION 
IS TO TAKE AWAY THE CAUSE. 



SPEECH BY JOHN B. FINCH, 



A great business — a great traffic — is on trial for its life 
before a jury of American citizens. The temperance 
men of this country have indicted the traffic as a social 
criminal. The counts of the indictment are as positive 
and plain as those that are preferred against any criminal, 
and the people are the jury who are to determine the 
truth or the falsity of the charges as they are stated. 
Therefore, I always feel that what I may say will do no 
good unless it shall lead the people to act — perhaps first to 
think and then to act. 

When I leave the platform to-night I shall be no better 
temperance man than I am now. If I accomplish any 
good it will be because I appeal to your reason and your 
judgment; thus leading you to act up to the full measure 
of your convictions. If I could, by any trick of sophistry, 
or any power of personal magnetism, lead every man and 
woman in this house to shout for prohibition, I would not 
do it unless your judgment, reason and intelligence told 
you to do so. The battle is to death ; no compromise will 
be accepted. Christian civilization must abolish the liquor 
traffic, or the liquor traffic will abolish Christian civiliza- 
tion. We are not in this conflict for a day, we are not in 
it for a week, we are not in it for a year, but we have 
enlisted in this campaign to stay until the close of the war. 

There is no doubt about the object of the temperance 



150 Solid Shot 

movement. The temperance men intend to destroy the 
drunkard-making system of America, root and branch* 
There is no such thing as compromise upon the issue. In 
the end the liquor traffic of this country will abolish 
temperance, or temperance will abolish the liquor traffic. 
The issue is squarely made and squarely joined before the 
people ; hence I say, I would not lead any man into the 
temperance rank unless he comes because he believes it is 
right, and comes to stay. I would have you take the facts 
to your home, to your office, to your store or place of 
business ; and when you are alone, and away from all 
exciting influences, sit down calmly and honestly, and, 
after having examined the liquor side and the temperance 
side of the question with equal care, make up your verdict 
in accordance with your honest judgment. 

The whole issue involved is simply a question of fact. 
If the dram shop of this country is a blessing; if it makes 
honest voters, honest citizens, kind husbands, and loving 
fathers ; if it leads to an observance of the Christian 
Sabbath ; if it leads to morality, manhood, and intelli- 
gence ; if it discourages crime, vice, pauperism, illegal 
voting, and false swearing, then there can be but one 
position to take on the question. If the liquor traffic is a 
blessing, every patriotic American, every man who loves 
his country, owes it to his citizenship, to his sense of honor, 
to stand by that traffic, talk for it, work for it, vote for it ; 
if he is a praying man, to pray for it ; if he is a preacher, 
to preach for it. 

If the reverse is true — if the liquor traffic of this country 
makes drunkards, cruel husbands and unkind fathers ; if 
it breaks women's hearts and degrades children ; if it fills 
our penitentiaries, almshouses and jails; if it stimulates 
riot in our great cities ; if it stands and laughs at the 
stuffing of the ballot-box ; if it causes men to swear false- 
ly on the witness stand or in the jury-box; in other words, 
if it is an enemy to this Government, if it is an enemy of 



Regulation a Failure. , 151 

law, and order, and civilization, then will you give me a 
single reason why you and I, as honest men, should vote 
" not guilty," and sustain it, in the face of such a record? 

We are not to settle this question as individuals. The 
institution is a public one. If it be destroyed, that must 
be done by the State and National governments. The 
part that you will take, the part that I shall take, in 
destroying it, must be that of citizens of the State and of 
the Republic. The question then is, not how it will affect 
me individually, but " What is for the best good of the 
whole State?" 

You should weigh honestly every argument that liquor 
men may bring, before making up your verdict. You 
should weigh just as honestly the arguments of the tem- 
perance men. 

A man asked me some time ago : fc Would you advise 
a temperance man to read whisk v papers?" 

I answered: "I would not give much for a temperance 
man if he would not. You are not to settle this question 
as an individual. You are a citizen of the State, and 
when you vote on this question, your vote does not alone 
affect yourself, but the whole State as well. You must 
forget your individuality, and remembei your position as 
the patriot and citizen. If there are any arguments in 
favor of the liquor traffic, you owe it to your honor, man- 
hood, and truth to weigh carefully every inducement the 
liquor men may bring to influence you in making up 
your verdict. Take the liquor traffic and all the good it 
has done, and put it on one side of your scales of judg- 
ment. Do not leave out anything. If there is any doubt, 
give the criminal the benefit of it. That is the rule of 
law we want applied to this case. After putting all the 
good it has done on one side of the scale, put all the evil 
it has done on the other side. Take its record in this 
country, weigh it honestly and well, and if you believe* 
after an investigation of this kind, that the liquor traffic 



152 Solid Shot ■ 

has done more good than it has done injury; that it is a 
blessing to the country ; that it tends to perpetuate the 
government, then it is your duty, beyond all question, to 
stand by and support the business. If the dram-shop of 
this country is an enemy to the State, an enemy of our 
institutions, I cannot see how any honest man dare stand 
and defend it— defend an institution that is opposed to the 
highest interests of his country. A man who will give 
aid or comfort to an enemy of his country, and thereby 
help to injure it, is a traitor." 

Let us now examine the case. Every person who reads 
will be satisfied that this question must be settled. The 
question, " What shall the government do with the alco- 
holic liquor traffic ?" is one that cannot fail to command 
attention. 

As surely as the American people is a nation of freemen 
who govern themselves, just as certainly they will render 
a verdict in this case, even though that verdict destroys 
^*ery political party that has an existence in this Re- 
public. 

Go home to-night, and when you reach there you find 
your boy in bed ; he has been indisposed for several days ; 
you see he is sick; you put your hand on his head; it is 
burning hot; put your fingers on his pulse; you find it 
running above a hundred ; speak to him ; he answers in 
broken sentences. You at once send for a physician- 
When he comes you ask: 

" What is the matter with Willie?" 

The physician makes an examination of the boy's body, 
asks how he has been feeling for the past few days, and 
tells you that Willie has a fever. 

You might ask your physician, " What is fever?" 

He would reply: " The child has taken, through the 
nose and lungs, malarial poison. The fever and increase 
of pulse are simply nature's efforts to expel the poison and 
save the child's life. This increased activity of the vital 



Regulation a Failure. 153 

forces is nature's way of defending herself against the 
poison which would destroy the organism unless expelled." 

You ask: 4t What shall we do for Willie?" 

The medical man will answer: u I shall leave medicine 
to help nature to do its work, and instruct you how to 
nurse him. Willie will get well.'' 

Then you ask: " Doctor, how long before he can re- 
cover?" 

The doctor will answer : " Never until the poison, the 
cause of the heat, the cause of the increased pulsation, is 
driven out of the system." 

He will tell you that you can do nothing more than to 
help nature to expel the poison, aud when the poison is 
gone, the heat of the body will become normal, the pulse 
will go down, and the child will live. 

To-day the political pulse is feverish. Men are talking, 
women are working and praying. Organizations are being 
formed, conventions are being held. What is the cause of 
this agitation? It is the poison of the liquor traffic in the 
political system. Until that power is expelled there is no 
hope of political or social health. 

In past ages governments born of a higher civilization 
developed rapidly for a few years and then died, thereby 
destroying the hopes of the people. Such governments 
sickened and died because social poison in their political 
systems was not expelled by rational treatment. This is 
the history of the world, and the only hope for long life 
of the American government is the destruction of false 
notions of dealing with social, political disease. The hope 
that this Republic will live longer than other governments 
have, is based upon the increasing intelligence of the 
masses in regard to matters of social rule. 

When a man says Americans should follow any custom, 
because people follow it in another land, he talks non- 
sense. Take the history of the world, and you find that, 
after a few years, or at most a few centuries, governments 



154 Solid Shot.' 

created with every prospect of success have died of dis- 
eases generated in their own systems by neglect of the 
ordinary rules of political hygiene. They have become 
things of the past, because they have allowed the poison 
of social and political vices to remain in their organisms. 

This government is largely like the people ; it is widely 
different from most European forms of rule. Take this 
thought into your minds, and keep it there. I have never 
heard a gentleman talking against prohibition and defend- 
ing the liquor traffic in this country who used this word 
" government " in its American sense. Liquor men always 
use the old or despotic sense of the word. Daylight and 
midnight are not more opposite. In this country the gov- 
ernment is made by the people ; in Europe it is made for 
the people. Here it comes up from the people ; there it 
comes down from the king. Here it is the people's power 
delegated to official representatives; there it is Divine (?) 
power delegated to the ruler. Here it is intelligent com- 
mon sense ; there a superstitious clinging to old forms. 
Once, while I was speaking in Iowa, a gentleman inter- 
rupted me, saying: "Mr. Finch, if this government should 
pass a prohibitory liquor law, it would become a tyranny," 

I said to him, "Please say that again, and say it slowly 
so that I can catch it." 

He repeated it: " If the government passes a prohibitory 
liquor bill, the law becomes a tyranny." 

I asked; " Sir, who is the government?" 

He answered, " The people." 

" The government being the people, if a prohibitory 
liquor law is made by its authority, it must be either an 
organic law ordered by a direct vote of the people or a 
statutory or functional law, enacted by the people, through 
their delegated representatives ?" 

*' Yes, sir." 

" If the operation of such a law is tyrannical, then the 
people are the tyrants ?" 



Regulation a Failure. 155 

"Yes. 1 ' 

i; Over whom are the people going to tyrannize?" 

"The people." 

I asked him if that would not be a good deal like a man 
sitting down on himself. 

It is the grossest kind of ignorance to say that in this 
country, where all political power is inherent in the 
people, any despotism can ever exist until the people 
place themselves in a position where they cannot govern 
themselves. When a man talks about the popular will in 
a government of the people being tyranny, he talks non 
sense. In this country the government is the government 
of the people, by the people and for the people. This 
should be the fact, whether it is or not. Consequently, 
the people are. the units of government. 

In a building of brick or of stone, the unit which makes 
up the structure is the single brick or stone in the wall. 
If I ask upon what the strength of this opera house 
depends, you would answer that its shape had something 
to do with it ; that the work upon it had something to do 
with it; but its strength primarily depends upon the stone 
in the wall. If the stone is rotten, I care not how good 
the work, I care not how good the plan, the building will 
be unstable — it will not be strong. The strength of the 
building is the combination of the strength of the units 
of the structure. In this government the unit is the man, 
the woman, the child. Each man and each woman who 
sits before me is a part of the American Republic. The 
strength of the government may depend somewhat upon 
its form, somewhat upon the constitution, yet primarily 
it must of necessity depend upon the character of the 
individual citizen. Anything that debauches the citizen 
will injure the government. Anything that elevates the 
citizen will elevate the government. To ruin a republic- 
is simply to ruin its citizens. To strengthen a republic, 
you have but to build up the intelligence, morality, and 
character of its units. 



156 Solid Shot 

As the government partakes of the nature of its citi- 
zens, so it is subject to disease, like the people who 
compose it. Whenever you see a moral, social, or politi- 
cal fever sweep over the country — when the political 
pulse runs up — every thinking man must perceive that 
somewhere in the organism of the government there is a 
poison to cause the fever. Especially is this true if the 
fever is not temporary. Let us examine this temperance 
fever. It is as well marked a type of social or political 
fever as any country ever had. It commenced almost 
with the birth of the Republic. It swept over the States, 
increasing in force until about 1856, when suddenly in the 
political organism another fever broke out. It was acute 
in form, and yet the strange fact in regard to these two 
National diseases is that inherited poison is the primary 
cause of both. The poison of slavery was transmitted to 
the child from the parent, and for long years it caused 
local irritation ; a breaking out in certain limbs of the 
body ensued, until in 1857 it assumed an acute form. In 
1860 the question was fairly raised, " Shall the government 
die or live?" As soon as that question came up, the 
temperance men and religious men of the nation said, 
ri This question of the continuance of the Nation's life 
must be settled at once. If the government be killed, 
then our reform will die with it. Let us save the Nation's 
life." 

But no sooner was that fever broken up, no sooner was 
the poison which caused it eliminated from the body of 
the government, and risk of its return avoided by the 
adoption of the amendments to the constitution of the 
United States, than from the North to the South, from the 
East to the West of this Nation, the temperance fever 
broke out anew, until to-day you can hardly ride upon a 
railroad train but you hear people talking about it ; in the 
post-office they are discussing it; the newspapers are full 
of it ; in the churches the ministers preach about it ; in 



Regulation a Failure. 157 

the prayer meetings the Christians pray about it, in polit- 
ical conventions the politicians swear about it. There is 
not a section of this land where it is not felt to day. What 
does it tell you ? No matter whether you drink liquor or 
abstain, what does it show you ? It must tell you that 
somewhere in the political organism of this Nation there 
is a cause. It will not do to say that this excitement is 
caused by a few fanatics and a few old women. To say 
that, is to say the American people are fools. If the 
American nation for more than seventy years has been 
excited and nervous over the stories of fanatics and old 
women, the American people are bigger fools than any- 
body ever supposed them to be. 

You know that the best men of to-day are talking 
about this question. You know that there is something, 
somewhere in the political organization of this country, 
that causes this lever. You ask me how long before it 
will cease. I answer, as the physician answered in regard 
to your boy, u Never, until the grog-shop poison, the cause 
of this disease, is forever eliminated from the political 
organism of this country." This question you must set- 
tle. You cannot nominate a man for Congress ; you can- 
not nominate a man for the Legislature— from this time 
forward — you will never even nominate a man for Presi- 
dent where this issue will not be forced upon him. 

The liquor oligarchy crack the whip of political corrup- 
tion over the political parties of this country, and cry, 
a Do our bidding or perish." You may talk about post- 
poning it, but the drunkard-makers demand of every can- 
didate for office that he get down in the dirt of political 
subserviency. If he wants a nomination he must come 
into convention with the token of his own defilement on 
him, so that the delegates who are tools ol the grog-shops 
may smell it. If he will not do that, he must keep his 
mouth closed and his principles to himself. 

When the temperance agitation started in this country, 



158 Solid Shot. 

there were two classes of men, just as there are now. 
One class said: u If the liquor traffic is a good thing, let 
it go free — do not hamper it with law ; do not shackle it ; 
give it a fair chance for existence ; do not put any more 
chains on it than you would on a grocery or dry-goods 
store. If the liquor business is a friend of the Republic, 
the Republic ought to be a friend to the liquor business, 
and should leave it free and unfettered. On the contrary, 
if it tends to loosen the bands of the young Republic, and 
break down our institutions, kill it, and kill it at once." 

The other class of men said, u Hold on ; that will not 
do; the people are not educated up to prohibition " Did 
you ever hear anybody say, u The people are not educated 
down to prohibition?" I always feel like thanking a 
liquor man when he uses the expression. You never 
heard him say, " The people are not educated down to 
prohibition." By his own language he admits that prohi- 
bition is on a higher moral, social, and political level than 
the license compromise with evil. This other class of 
men went on to say, " There is no use in making a law 
until the people are educated up to the point of obeying 
it." And when they said that, they said God Almighty 
made a mistake. You ask me what I mean? I mean 
this : That if God had not passed his prohibitory com- 
mandments until the people were educated up to the point 
of obeying them, He never would have ordained them. 
He said: "Thou shalt not steal." They were stealing 
then in the wilderness, and there is stealing in America 
to-day. " Thou shalt not bear false witness." I presume 
they were doing it then, and it is certainly being done 
to day. If you do not think so, indict a liquor seller, and 
bring him into court, and ask some of his customers to 
swear against him. While God, amid the thunders of the 
mountains, was saying: u Thou shalt have no other God," 
His high priest, at the foot of the mountain, was setting 
up a calf for the people to worship. 



Regulation a Failure. 159 

There is a class of men. and we have a great many of 
them, claiming to be leaders of public opinion, who are 
incessantly preaching that there is no use in making a law 
until the people are educated up to the point of obeying 
it, while they know, if they know anything of the princi- 
ples of government and law, that it is the thinnest twad- 
dle ever used by demagogues to catch fools. 

Law is not passed for men who will obey — it is passed 
for the men who are not educated up to the point of doing 
so. If all the people of this country were educated up to 
the point where they would not steal, would you want any 
law against stealing ? If they were educated up to the 
point where they would not murder, would you want any 
law against murder? The whole theory of law is, to deal 
with the law-breaker, and not the man who will obey. It 
is for the men on a degraded plane, and not for the men 
on an exalted plane. 

In my own State, in the cattle counties, for several 
years, the law against murder was practically a dead let- 
ter. Public sentiment was very low. It was really con- 
sidered a mark of honor to have killed a man. If a man 
told another he lied, a revolver would be drawn, and life 
lost. The people said: "Served him right.'' A man 
going along the street was pointed out as having killed 
two men. Several times I have been touched on the 
shoulder by a friend, who said: "That person has killed 
a man.'' Public sentiment justified it. For a long time 
it was impossible to indict a man for murder and convict 
him on trial. Perhaps there was not a man on the jury 
but had committed a murder himself. The result was 
"not guilty," or "killed the man in self defense." But 
the government did not pass laws on the level with the 
moral sense of the people. The government did not say: 
" We cannot prohibit you from shooting, so we will pass a 
license law and allow you to shoot, if you will give us 
five hundred dollars; we will keep the penalties down 



160 Solid Shot 

until you are educated up to the point of thinking it is 
wrong to kill." The government said: u It is wrong to 
kill," and it held the law over these counties, till the peo- 
ple came up, up, up to the law, and to day there is no por- 
tion of the United States where the law is better enforced. 
It is better enforced in the counties of Nebraska than in 
the cities of Chicago or Milwaukee. The State acted on 
the correct principle ; the law was used as an educator. 

The talk of the license men is that the government shall 
pass a law on the level of the worst element of the peo- 
ple, and then educate the people up through and above it. 
This is utter nonsense. The license idea has heretofore 
prevailed. License laws have been passed. For more 
than seventy years, in this country, we have been trying 
to regulate and restrain the liquor business with license 
laws, and what has been the result? 

A gentleman said to me the other day : " Prohibition 
does not prohibit." 

I said : " That is not the question. The question for 
you as a license man to answer is, ' Does regulation regu- 
late?' " 

When prohibition has been tried as long as license has 
been, backed by the State and National Governments, if 
it prove as big a fizzle as license now is we will consent to 
the adoption of a new plan. We are not particular about 
the plan ; it is simply the result we wish to achieve. For 
more than seventy years we have tried this license system. 
The liquor business was weak when the license plan was 
adopted; but under the fostering care of this accursed 
fraud it has become the autocrat of politics; and you 
know this to be a fact. 

That license laws are a dead letter, no man will dare to 
deny. In your own State the law says the dram shops 
shall not sell liquor to minors. They do sell to minors. 
The law says they shall not sell liquor to drunkards. 
They do sell to drunkards. The law says they shall not 



A. B. LEONARD, OF NEW YORK. 



Regulation a Failure. ■ 161 

sell liquor on Sunday. They do sell on Sunday. The law 
says they shall not sell adulterated liquors. They do sell 
adulterated liquors. For more than seventy years in dif- 
ferent States in this Union the people have tried to make 
this old license fizzle work. The temperance people dur- 
ing this time have done all that they could to secure obe- 
dience to the law, and to save men from the pernicious 
influence of the licensed liquor traffic. They have used 
the pledge. They have gone down into the gutter and 
lifted out the victims of this devilish system. And when 
they have lifted them out of the pitfall, the license men 
vote to keep the pitfall open, so that other men may fall 
in ; thus temperance men have a job on hand all the time. 
Temperance workers have established temperance lodges. 
They have built coffee houses. They have established 
reading rooms, and put lecturers on the platform and paid 
them. They have circulated books and arguments ; and 
they have gone into towns and cities and organized 
leagues to enforce this law and try to make it work. 
Now, after seventy years of earnest trial, after seventy 
years of tears and prayer and hard work, and money- 
giving and struggling, I stand here to say, what no man 
dares challenge, that this work has demonstrated the li- 
cense system of this country to be the most unmitigated 
humbug that was ever invented by bad men to fool an 
ignorant people. But the license man springs up, ready 
to offer an objection. 

'• You have laws enough now, if you would only enforce 
them." 

" Sir, we have tried to enforce them, though they are 
not laws of our making. We have no faith in them ; have 
you?" 

14 Yes," he answers. 

" Yo*u are in favor of license ?" 

"Yes." 

ki You voted for license?" 



162 Solid Shot. 

"Yes. 1 ' 

"You believe it will work?" 

u Yes." 

" Why do you not make it work ? If you are a license 
man, are you not ashamed to come and ask the Prohibi 
tionist: ' Why do you not enforce our law?' Why do you 
not enforce it yourselves ? We do not believe in the sys- 
tem. We have worked for its enforcement, because it 
was the best thing we could do. We never believed in it." 

Before the high license law was passed in Nebraska two 
years ago, I was talking with a gentleman, a member of 
the State Senate. He asked : 

" What are you going to do about this high license law?" 

I answered: ^ Nothing." 

"Are you in favor of it?" 

" No, sir." 

" Why not?" 

" I believe if whisky selling is a good thing, the poor 
man has as much right to sell as the rich man. If it is a 
good thing, let everybody sell it. If it is a curse, let no 
one sell it." 

He said: "That is theory." 

I replied: " It is fact" 

He said: " This license law will be enforced." 

I answered: " You know, and every man in this country 
knows, that a license law never was enforced, and that it 
never will be. License law means, let the liquor man pay 
so much money for license ; then let him do as he pleases." 

Said he : "If it be passed it will be enforced." 

" Who is to see that it will be enforced?" 

" The license men." 

The law was passed. When it came into effect last June 
it was universally disobeyed over the State. The liquor 
men would not even pay the license. The Prohibitionists 
waited to see what the license men would do. They 
wanted to see if men who talked and voted license were 



Regulation a Failure. 163 

honest. The license men did not lift a finger! At last an 
editor, in a long article, declared that I was the leader 
of the strongest political temperance organization in the 
country, and that it was my duty to enforce that law! 
The same man had been in the legislature and had voted 
for the law. A few days after I met him, and he in- 
quired : 

" Did you see that editorial of mine?" 

" Yes ; and I laughed.*' 

M Why did you laugh?" 

" To think what a fool you are." 

; ' What do you mean?" 

I asked: " Whose law is it ; your law or mine?" 

" It is our law." 

" You believe in it ; I do not. You voted for it ; I did 
not. You say regulation will regulate ; I say it will not. 
Is not such the fact? 1 ' 

"Yes." 

" Then take care of your own babies, please. Do not 
come around to me to have me take care of them." 

As well try to regulate a rattlesnake by holding it by 
the tail, as to permit and then attempt to regulate saloons. 
The way to regulate a rattlesnake is to kill it, smash its 
head — its tail may live until sundown, but it cannot bite. 
The way to regulate the liquor business is to kill its head, 
the licensed grog shop, the school of vice, crime and 
political corruption. Its tail may live in cellars and dark 
places during the twilight of ignorance and superstition, 
but when its head is destroyed it is powerless to resist — to 
bulldoze officers or breed assassins. 

In the city of Omaha, Neb., there was living, a little 
more than a year ago, a gentleman by the name of Watson 
B. Smith, a clerk of the United Stages Court, one of the 
finest gentlemen ever in the State — a leading politician. 
an earnest Christian, a prominent layman in the Baptist 
church ; a man who had done as much for Nebraska Sun- 



164 Solid Shot. 

day-schools and Nebraska civilization as any other man. 
Mr. Smith was an honest man. He said: kt The liquor- 
sellers must obey the law in this State." Some business 
men rallied round him. They tried to make the liquor 
sellers take out licenses in accordance with the laws of the 
State. They commenced their prosecutions in July, and 
in October Col. Watson B. Smith, at the hour of midnight, 
was shot down by assassins, at his office door, in the United 
States government building, for no other reason than that 
he was working to make liquor cut- throats obey the law. 

In all parts of this land the liquor business to-day is an 
outlaw, and there is nothing too vile or too mean tor it to 
do. When a man says, "lam a license man," the only 
thing I desire to ask of him is to be an honest believer ; 
that is, to try and enforce the law in which he believes. 

. You know, my friends— I care not how much you talk 
in favor of license — that you do not try to make license 
work. You know that if you did, the liquor men would 
endeavor to injure your business and smirch your charac- 
ter ; that they would hire bullies to come up behind you 
and club you on the head. In Milwaukee, simply because 
some of the citizens asked that the law might be enforced 
so far as closing disreputable places on Sunday, the liquor 
men organized and boycotted every man who dared ask 
the enforcement. 

After seventy years' trial every man must be convinced 
that to talk regulation, to talk license, is to advocate the 
most contemptible nonsense. 



CANNOT BE LEGALIZED WITHOUT SIN, 



THE DEMAND OF THE CHURCH IS THE DESTRUCTION 
OF THE DRAM-SHOP. 



SPEECH BY A. B. LEONARD, D. D. 

We demand the immediate and unconditional destruc- 
tion of the liquor traffic. We will repeat that demand 
over and over and over. We will ring the changes on it, 
through all the ages and through all the years, until there 
is not a legalized rumshop on American soil. 

First of all, then, we must keep before the people that a 
liquor dealer is a criminal — a criminal! We will not let 
down our standard one single inch for any man, no matter 
if he is a professing Christian and votes for the legaliza- 
tion of the rum traffic. We say that a liquor dealer is a 
criminal of the deepest dye, and that he deserves a place 
only in a felon's dock, in the felon's cell, and, if need be, 
on the felon's gibbet. 

We take our stand on the high ground that was held by 
the Episcopacy of the Methodist church in that great 
address that they have given to the General Conference. 
There is just one short sentence containing seven words, 
but you know seven is a sacred number. That one sen- 
tence is this: "It can never be legalized without sin." 
These are the heights to which our Bishops have led us. 
They have led us up to this mountain height, where the 
air is clear and the sky is cloudless. There are no mists 
here. There is no mingling of light with darkness here. 
That one short, crisp sentence says: It can never be 

LEGALIZED WITHOUT SIN. 



166 SoM Shot. , 

How is the drink traffic legalized? You answer: It is 
legalized by the legislature. Then I say the legislature 
that legalizes the drink traffic is a sinner against God and 
against men. If the statement made by our Bishops is 
true, the man who sits in the Legislature and votes for the 
enactment of a license law is a sinner against God and 
against morality. 

The legislatures are made up through the organization 
of political parties. Political pa'rties make platforms. 
And I say that if this statement be true, every political 
party that in convention assembled makes a platlorm that 
proposes to legalize the rum traffic, is a sinner against God. 

And I carry the logic of this argument just a little 
further. There is a legitimate conclusion to which we 
must come, and from which there is no escape. If our 
Bishops have told us the truth then we must reach this 
conclusion: Political parties are made up of individuals, 
and an individual that votes a ticket that represents a 
party that legalizes the rum traffic— that man is a sinner! 
I say from this standpoint that the preacher who goes out 
to-day and stands in favor of license, or regulation in any 
form, is not a worthy son of the Gospel. 

Now, this is the logical conclusion to be drawn from that 
one brief sentence from the Episcopal address. I say, if 
that Episcopal address is true, if the Bishops are right in 
their utterance, every man — be he minister or layman — 
who votes with a party that endorses license, is a sinner ! 
That is the logic of the Bishops ; that isn't my logic. Don't 
let any say that this is my say-so. I say that this is the 
logic of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church, if 
language means anything ; and on that platform we will 
stand, and we will ring the changes on that sentence of 
seven words — " It can never be legalized without sin." 

We will agitate from that standpoint ; and the agitation 
from that standpoint is going to produce a profound disin- 
tegration, and the gold of prohibition is being separated 



Cannot be Legalized Without Sin. 167 

from the dross of regulation , either by taxation or license. 
You know how the ore is held together by the power of 
cohesion, and you know that what they do in order to 
separate the gold from the dross is to intensify the heat — 
intensify it more and more until the heat becomes suffi- 
cient to overcome the power of cohesion, and then the 
metal drops out and there is a separation between the dross 
and the metal. Now, that is what we are going to do, and 
are doing on this question. We are intensifying the heat. 
We will make it hotter and hotter for the politicians of 
this country, and under this process of agitation and the 
increase of moral heat that shall come from the repetition 
of this great sentence, "It can never be legalized with- 
out sin," we will drive out the last Methodist from the old 
parties. 

Where will they go ? That brings out the necessity of 
crystallization; because, if there is to be disintegration, 
the best elements in the parties that disintegrate must go 
somewhere. 

If you intensify the heat under the Republican party so 
that the friends of prohibition drop out, where will they 
go ? They can't go to the Democratic party. There is as 
much dross there as in the country they came from. And 
when you intensify the heat under the Democratic party 
until the friends of prohibition drop out, where will they 
go ? It isn't worth while for them to go into the Republi- 
can prrty, for they would be no better off there. The 
only place on earth for them is in the Prohibition party. 
That means crystallization — crystallization of the friends 
of prohibition, in this country. And when this process 
s:oes far enough, we will reach the point of united action, 
and then comes the victory. 

Seventy-five per cent, of the people of this country are 
friends of prohibition to day ; and in the power of God 
we will intensify the heat until the last man of them 
comes out from the dross of old whisky politics, and comes 
into this new party for the overthrow of the rum traffic 
of this country. That is what we expect to achieve. We 
expect to achieve that victory, as we expect to-morrow's 
sun to rise. 



168 Solid Shot. , 



WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 



THE MAN WHO WOULD BURN THE RAILROAD BRIDGE. 



SPEECH BY JOHN P. ST. JOHN. 



You might just as well come over on the Lord's side at 
once in this business, and quit trying to carry the saloon 
on one shoulder and the church on the other, my friends. 
They won't ride together longer. 

Let us see. I heard of a fellow out West who owned a 
calf That is nothing new, because I knew a man out 
there that owned two, and the man had a ten year old 
boy, and the boy carelessly let the bars down and let the 
calf out of the lot — I did that once myself over in Indiana 
when I was a boy, and I have not forgotten it yet. My 
father did not grow in grace at that time. I can feel it to 
this day. And the calf strayed on the railroad track and 
an engine came along and struck him and doubled him all 
up and it was not worth anything as a calf after that, but 
the owner of that calf was somewhat vexed. He was not 
very particular whether the " sun went down on his 
wrath " or not, and he sued the railroad company, and 
after lawing away the price of a hundred calves, the com- 
pany beat him — as the company always beats a man that 
sues for the price of a calf— and the fellow got madder, 
and coming home from the trial he said to the old church 
deacon : " Deacon, I am going to get even with that rail- 
road company." 

" How ?" said the deacon. 

" I am going to burn the bridge across the chasm just 
outside of town." 



Who Is Responsible? 169 

"Why!" said the deacon, "you would never do that, 
would you?" 

" Yes," he said ; " I don't propose to let any rich corpo- 
ration run rough-shod over me." 

And the next night the old deacon, in telling his wife 
about it, said the old fellow intended to burn the bridge 
that night at nine o'clock, and the time came around, and 
the wife, who was a member of the Women's Christian 
Temperance Union, said that they had better go down 
and see about it, but the old deacon said he would not 
burn it, he was just in a passion when he said he would. 
"Well," she said, "let us go down and see about it any 
way." So they started down towards the bridge, and sure 
enough the fellow was there, and he had just finished 
saturating a portion of the bridge with kerosene oil, and 
just as they reached him he felt in his pocket and found 
he had forgotten to bring matches He turned to the 
deacon and asked him for a match, and the deacon said : 

"What are you going to do with the match ?" 

" Going to burn the bridge," said the man, " as I told 
you last night I would." 

" Well," said the deacon, " now I propose to show you 
the difference between a man who has made his peace 
with the Lord and a man of the world. If I loaned you a 
match to burn the bridge," said the deacon, " I would be 
as guilty as you are." 

" Well," said the fellow, " deacon, you need not get on 
your ear about it. There are plenty of matches. I will 
have them if I want them, you know, there is no doubt 
about that. Why. deacon, I know where I can buy match- 
es at different places, right here in the village. You can't 
suppress the sale of matches, deacon, and we must have 
the matches, and we want them now. Now," said he, 
" deacon, I want one bad, and I want it just now. I will 
tell you what I will do, deacon, I will give you a dollar 
for a match/' 



170 Solid Shot 

"Well," said the deacon, "are you going to burn the 
bridge anyway?" 

"Why, yes," said the fellow, "I told you last night I 
would burn it, and you might just as well have a little 
revenue as anybody out of this transaction, don't you see? 
Exactly so, I am going to burn it anyway." 

u Well," said the old deacon," if you are going to burn 
it anyway, that puts an entirely different light upon the 
whole question." 

And he reached in his pocket for a match, and his wife 
caught him by the coat-tail, and said "Here, husband, you 
would not sell the man a match, would you, to be used in 
burning the bridge?" 

And that broke the deacon all up, and he said, " Nancy, 
that is just the way with you Christian Temperance Union 
women, you are a lot of cranks and fanatics, and always 
going to extremes in everything. It is your business to 
attend to household affairs and it is my business to provide 
for the family, and when I have an opportunity to make 
an honest dollar, I don't want you to come around and put 
your oar in." And he hands over the match to the man, 
and the man passes him back a big wagon- wheel silver 
dollar, and as the deacon shoves it away down in his 
pocket at a point where he absolutely knows that it can't 
get away when his wife is mending his pants pocket he 
then turns to the man and says: 

"Are you going to burn the bridge ?" 

" Why, of course I am," said the man ; " that is what I 
bought the match for." 

" Well," said the deacon, " may God have mercy on your 
soul; I wash my hands of the whole business." 

And the match was lighted and the bridge is ablaze and 
the cars came along at the rate of forty miles an hour and 
dashed into the chasm and one hundred lives are lost ! 

Who is guilty when it comes to the judgment bar of 
God? The man who sold the match is just as guilty as 
the man who lighted and fired the bridge ! 



THE PLATFORMS, 



PLATFORMS AND CANDIDATES OF THE FOUR LEADING 
PARTIES OF 1888* 



PROHIBITION. 

CONVENTION— Indianapolis, May 30th and 31st, 1888. 

CANDIDATES— President, Clinton B. Fisk, of New 

Jersey; Vice President, John A. Brooks, of Missouri. 

The Prohibition party, in National convention assembled, acknowledg- 
ing Almighty God as the source of all power in government, does hereby 
declare : 

1. That the manufacture, importation, exportation, transportation, 
and sale of alcoholic beverages should be made public crimes and prohib- 
ited as such. 

2. That such prohibition must be secured through amendments to our 
National and State constitutions, enforced by adequate laws adequately 
supported by administrative authority, and to this end the organization of 
the Prohibition party is imperatively demanded in State and Nation. 

3. That any form of license, taxation, or regulation of the liquor traffic 
is contrary to good government; that any party which supports regulation, 
license or taxation enters into an alliance with such traffic and becomes 
the actual foe of the State's welfare, and that we arraign the Republican 
and Democratic parties for their persistent attitude in favor of licensed 
iniquity, whereby they oppose the demand of the people for prohibition, 
and through open complicity with the liquor crime defeat the enforcement 
of the law. 

4. For the immediate abolition of the internal revenue system, whereby 
our National government is deriving support from our greatest National 
vice. 

5. That, an adequate public revenue being necessary, it may properly 
be raised by import duties, but import duties should be so reduced that no 
surplus shall be accumulated in the treasury, and the burdens of taxation 



* In addition to these, lour other parties held conventions, adopted platforms and nom- 
inated National candidates, as follows : The United Labor party, the American party, the 
Equal Rights party, and the Industrial Reform party. 



172 Solid Shot 

should be removed from foods, clothing, and other comforts and necessa- 
ries of life, and imposed on such other articles of import as will give 
protection to the manufacturing employer and producing laborer 
against the competion of the world. 

6. That the right of suffrage rests on no mere circumstance of race, 
color, sex or nationality, and that where, from any cause, it has been 
withheld from citizens who are of suitable age and mentally and morally 
qualified for the exercise of an intelligent ballot, it should be restored by 
the people through the legislatures of the several States on such educa- 
tional basis as they may deem wise. 

7. That civil service appointments for all civil offices, chiefly clerical 
in their duties, should be based upon moral, intellectual, and physical 
qualifications, and not upon party service or party necessity. 

8. For the abolition of polygamy and the establishment of uniform 
laws governing marriage and divorce. 

9. For prohibiting all combinations of capital to control and to in- 
crease the cost of products for popular consumption. 

10. For the preservation and defense of the Sabbath as a civil institu- 
tion, without oppressing any who religiously observe the same on any 
other than the first day of the week. 

11. That arbitration is the Christian, wise, and economical method of 
settling national differences, and the same method should, by judicious 
legislation, be applied to the settlement of disputes between large bodies 
of employes and employers; that the abolition of the saloon would re- 
move the burdens, moral, physical, pecuniary and social, which now op- 
press labor and rob it of its earnings, and would prove to be the wise and 
successful way of promoting labor reform ; and we invite labor and capi- 
tal to unite with us for the accomplishment thereof; that monopoly in 
land is a wrong to the people, and public land should be reserved to actual 
settlers; and that men and women should receive equal wages for equal 
work. 

12. That our immigration laws should be so enforced as to prevent the 
introduction of all convicts, inmates of other dependent institutions, 
and others physically incapacitated for self-support, and that no person 
shall have the ballot in any State who is not a citizen of the United 
States. 

13. Recognizing and declaring that the prohibition of the liquor traffic 
has become the dominant issue in national politics, we invite to full party 
fellowship all those who on this one dominant issue are with us agreed, 
in the full belief that this party can and will remove sectional differ- 
ences, promote national unity, and insure the best welfare of our entire 
land. 



-f-The italicized portion of the 5th plank was adopted in haste on the evening of the last 
day without being referred to the committee on resolutions, as provided by the order of 
business. It is claimed that this clause was not legally adopted by the convention, and is 
aot properly a part of the platform. 



The Platforms. 



173 



UNION LABOR. 

CONVENTION— Cincinnati, Mat 16th, 18S8. 
CANDIDATES— President, Alson J. Streeter ; of Illi- 
nois; Vice President, Charles Cunningham, of Ar 

KANSAS. 



1. While we believe that the proper solu- 
tion of the financial system will greatly 
relieve those now in danger of losing their 
homes by mortgage foreclosure and enable 
all industrious persons to secure a home as 
the highest result of civilization, we oppose 
land monopoly in every form, demand the 
forfeiture of unearned grants, the limita- 
tion of land-owner6hip, and such other leg- 
islation as will stop speculation in land 
and holding it unused from those whose 
necessities require it. We believe the 
earth was made for the people, and not to 
enable an idle aristocracy to subsist through 
rents upon the toils of the industrious, and 
that •* corners " in land are as bad as " cor- 
ners " in food, and that those who are not 
residents or citizens should not be allowed 
to own land in the United States. A home- 
stead should be exempt to a limited extent 
from execution or taxation. 

2. The means of communication and 
transportation should be owned by the peo- 
ple, as is the United States postal system. 

3. The establishing of a national mone- 
tary system in the interest of the producers 
instead of the speculators and usurers, by 
which the circulating medium in necessary 
quantity and full legal tender should be is- 
sued directly to the people without the in- 
tervention of banks, or loaned to citizens 
upon laud security at a low rate of interest. 
To relieve them from extortions of usury 
and enable them to control the money sup- 
ply, postal savings banks should be estab- 
lished. While we have free coinage of gold 
we should have free coinage of silver. We 
demand the immediate application of all 
the idle money in the United States treas- 
ury to the payment of the bonded debt, and 
condemn the further issue of interest-bear- 
ing bonds either by the National govern- 
ment or by States, Territories, or by muni- 
cipalities. 

4. Arbitration should take the place of 



strikes and other injurious methods of set- 
tling labor disputes. The letting of convict 
labor to contractors should be prohibited, 
the contract system be abolished in public 
works, the hours of labor in industrial 
establishments be reduced commensurate 
with the increased production by labor- 
saving machinery, employes be protected 
from bodily injury, equal pay given for 
equal work for both sexes, and labor, agri- 
cultural and co-operative associations be 
fostered and encouraged by law. The foun- 
dation of a republic is in the intelligence of 
its citizens, and children who are drawn 
into work shops, mines and factories are 
deprived of the education which should be 
secured to all by proper legislation. 

5. We demand the passage of a service 
pension bill to pension every honorably- 
discharged soldier and sailor of the United 



6. A graduated income tax is the most 
equitable system of taxation, placing the 
burden of government upon those who are 
best able to pay, instead of laying it on the 
farmers and exempting millionaire bond- 
holders and corporations. 

7. We demand a constitutional amend- 
ment making United States Senators elec- 
tive by a direct vote of the people. 

8. We demand a strict enforcement of 
laws prohibiting the importation of sub- 
jects of foreign countries under contracts. 

9. We demand the passage and enforce- 
ment of such legislation as will absolutely 
exclude the Chinese from the United States. 

10. The right to vote is inherent in citi- 
zenship, irrespective of sex, and is properly 
within the province of State legislation. 

11. The paramount issues to be solved in 
the interests of humanity are the abolition 
of usury, monopoly and trusts ; and we de- 
nounce the Democratic and Republican 
parties for creating and perpetuating these 
monstrous evils. 



174 



Solid Shot 



DEMOCRATIC. 

CONVENTION— St. Louis, June 5th, 6th and 7th, 1888. 

CANDIDATES— President, Grover Cleveland, oe New 

York ; Vice President, Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio. 



The Democratic party ol the United 
States, in National oonvention assembled, 
renews the pledge of its fidelity to Demo- 
cratic faith, and re-affirms the platform 
adopted by its representatives in the con- 
vention of 1884, and endorses the views ex- 
pressed by President Cleveland in his last 
annual message to Congress as the correct 
interpretation of that platform upon the 
question of tariff reduction; and also en- 
dorses the efforts of our Democratic repre- 
sentatives in Congress to secure a reduction 
of excessive taxation. 

Chief among its principles of party faith 
are the maintenance of an indissoluble Union 
of free and indestructible States, now about 
to enter upon its second century of unex- 
ampled progress and renown ; devotion to a 
plan of government regulated by a written 
constitution, strictly specifying every 
granted power and expressly reserving to 
the States or people the entire ungr anted 
residue of power ; the encouragement of a 
jealous popular vigilance, directed to all 
who have been chosen for brief terms to 
enact and execute the laws and are charged 
with the duty of preserving peace, insuring 
equality and establishing justice. 

The Democratic party welcomes an ex- 
acting scrutiny of the administration of the 
executive power which four years ago was 
committed to its trust in the election of 
Grover Cleveland president of the United 
States ; and it challenges the most search- 
ing inquiry concerning its fidelity and devo- 
tion to the pledges which then invited the 
suffrages of the people. 

During a most critical period of our finan- 
cial affairs, resulting from over-taxation, 
the anomalous condition of our currency, 
and a public debt unmatured, it has, by the 
adoption of a wise and conservative course, 
not only averted disaster, but greatly pro- 
moted the prosperity of the people. 

It has reversed the improvident and un- 



wise policy of the ^Republican party touch, 
ing the public domain, and has reclaimed 
from corporations and syndicates, alien and 
domestic, and restored to the people nearly 
100,000,000 of acres of valuable land, to be 
sacredly held as homesteads for our citi- 
zens. 

While carefully guarding the interests of 
the tax -payers, and conforming strictly to 
the principles of justice and equity, it has 
paid out more for pensions and bounties to 
the soldiers and sailors of the republic than 
was ever paid before during an equal 
period. 

By intelligent management and a judi- 
cious and economical expenditure of the 
public money, it has set on foot the recon- 
struction of the American navy upon a 
system which forbids the recurrence of 
scandal and insures successful results. 

It has adopted and consistently pursued 
a firm and prudent foreign policy, preserv- 
ing peace with all nations while scrupu- 
lously maintaining all the rights and inter- 
ests of our own government and people at 
home and abroad. 

The exclusion from our shores of Chinese 
laborers has been effectually secured under 
the provisions of a treaty, the operation of 
which has been postponed by the action of 
a Republican majority in the Senate. 

Honest reform in the Civil Service has 
been inaugurated and maintained by Presi- 
dent Cleveland, and he has brought the 
public service to the highest standard of 
efficiency, not only by rule and precept, 
but by the example of his own untiring 
and unselfish administration of public af- 
fairs. 

In every branch and department of the 
government under Democratic control the 
right and the welfare of all the people have 
been guarded and defended; every public 
interest has been protected, and the equali- 
ty of all our citizens before the law, with- 



The Platforms. 



175 



out regard to race or color, has been stead- 
fastly maintained. 

Upon its record thus exhibited and upon 
the pledge of a continuance to the people of 
the benefits of good government, the Na- 
tional Democracy invoke a renewal of pop- 
ular trust by the re-election of a chief 
magistrate who is faithiul, able and pru- 
dent. 

They invoke an addition to that trust by 
the transfer also to the Democracy of the 
entire legislative power. 

The Republican party, controlling the 
Senate and resisting in both Houses a ref- 
ormation of unjusfoand unequal tax laws 
which have outlasted the necessities of war 
and are now undermining the abundance of 
a long peace, deny to the people equality 
before the law and the fairness and the just- 
ness which are their right. Thus the cry 
of American labor for a better share in the 
rewards of industry is stifled with false 
pretenses ; enterprise is fettered and bound 
down to home markets ; capital is discour- 
aged with doubt, and unequal, UDjust laws 
can neither be properly amended nor re- 
pealed. 

The Democratic party will continue, with 
all the power confided to it, the struggles to 
reform these laws in accordance with the 
pledges of its last platform, endorsed at 
the ballot-box by the suffrages of the peo- 
ple. 

Of all the industrious freemen of our 
land an immense majority, including every 
tiller of the soil, gain no advantage from 
the tax laws, but the price of nearly every- 
thing they buy is increased by the favorit- 
ism of an unequal system of tax legislation. 

All unnecessary taxation is unjust taxa- 
tion. 

It is repugnant to the creed of Democracy 
that by such taxation the cost of the neces- 
saries of life should be unjustifiably in- 
creased to all our people. 

Judged by Democratic principles, the in- 
terests of the people are betrayed when by 
unnecessary taxation trusts and combina- 
tions are permitted and fostered, which, 
while unduly enriching the few that com- 
bine, rob the body of our citizens by de- 
priving them, as purchasers, of the benefits 



of natural competition. Every Democratic 
rule of governmental action is violated 
when, through unnecessary taxation, a 
vast sum of money, far beyond the needs of 
an economical administration, is drawn 
from the people and the channels of trade, 
and accumulated as a demoralizing surplus 
in the National treasury. 

The money now lying idle in the Federal 
treasury, resulting from superfluous taxa- 
tion, amounts to more than $125,000,000, 
and the surplus is reaching the sum of more 
than $60,000,00.0 annually. 

Debauched by this immense temptation, 
the remedy of the Republican party is to 
meet and exhaust by extravagant appropri- 
ations and expenditures, whether constitu- 
tional or not, the accumulations of extrava- 
gant taxation. 

The Democratic policy is to enforce fru- 
gality in public expense and abolish unnec- 
essary taxation.. 

Our established domestic industries 
should not, and need not, be endangered 
by a reduction and correction of the bur- 
dens of taxation. On the contrary, a fair 
and careful revision of our tax laws, with 
due allowance for the difference between 
the wages of American and foreign labor, 
must promote and encourage every branch 
of such industries and enterprises, by giv- 
ing them assurance of an extended market 
and steady and continuous operation. 

In the interest of American labor, which 
should in no event be neglected, the revision 
of our tax laws contemplated by the Demo- 
cratic party would promote the advantage 
of such labor by cheapening the cost of the 
necessaries of life in the home of every 
workingman, and at the same time securing 
to him steady and remunerative employ- 
ment. 

Upon this question of tariff reform, so 
closely concerning every phase of our nar 
tional life, and upon every question involved 
in the problem of good government, the 
Democratic party submits its principles 
and professions to the intelligent suffrages 
of the American people. 

Resolved, That this convention hereby 
endorses and recommends the early passage 
of the bill for the reduction of the revenue 



176 



Solid Shot. 



now pending in the House of Representa- 
tives, 

Besolved, That a just and liberal policy 
shonld be pursued in reference to the Terri- 
tories; that right of self-government is in- 
herent in the people and guaranteed under 
the constitution; that the Territories of 
Washington, Dakota, Montana and New 
Mexico are by virtue of population and de- 
velopment entitled to admission into the 
Union as States, and we unqualifiedly con- 
demn the course of the Republican party in 



refusing Statehood and self-government to 
their people. 

Resolved, That we express our cordial 
sympathy with the struggling people of 
all nations in their effort to secure for them- 
selves the inestimable blessings of self-gov- 
ernment and civil and religious liberty, and 
we especially declare our sympathy with 
the efforts of those noble patriots who, led 
by Gladstone and Parnell, have conducted 
their grand and peaceful contest for Home 
Rule in Ireland. 



REPUBLICAN. 

CONVENTION— Chicago, June 19th to 25th, 1888. 
CANDIDATES— President, Benjamin Harrison, op In- 
diana ; Vice President, Levi P. Morton, op New York. 

The Republicans of the United States, as- 
sembled by their delegates in National con- 
vention, pause on the threshold of their 
proceedings to honor the memory of their 
first great leader, the immortal champion 
of liberty and the rights of the people- 
Abraham Lincoln ; and to cover also with 
wreaths of imperishable remembrance and 
gratitude the heroic names of our later 
leaders who have more recently been called 
away from our councils— Grant, Garfield, 
Arthur, Logan, Conklin. May their mem- 
ories be faithfully cherished. 

We also recall with our greetings, and 
with prayer for his recovery, the name of 
one of our living heroes, whose memory 
will be treasured in the history both of Re- 
publicans and the republic — the name of 
that noble soldier and favorite child of vic- 
tory, Philip H. Sheridan. 

In the spirit of those great leaders and of 
our own devotion to human liberty, and 
with that hostility to all forms of despotism 
and oppression which is the fundamental 
idea of the Republican party, we send fra- 
ternal congratulations to our fellow-Ameri- 
cans of Brazil upon their great act of eman- 
cipation, which completes the abolition of 
slavery throughout the two American con- 
tinents. 



We earnestly hope that we may soon con- 
gratulate our fellow-citizens of Irish birth 
upon the peaceful recovery of Home Rule 
for Ireland. 

We re-affirm our unswerving devotion to 
the National constitution and the indissolu- 
ble union of the States ; to the autonomy 
reserved to the States under the constitu- 
tion ; to the personal rights and liberties of 
citizens in all the States and Territories in 
the Union, and especially to the supreme 
and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, 
rich or poor, native or foreign-born, white 
or black, to cast one free ballot in public 
elections, and to have that ballot duly 
counted. We hold the free and honest pop- 
ular ballot, and the just and equal repre- 
sentation of all the people, to be the foun- 
dation of our republican government, and 
demand effective legislation to secure the 
integrity and purity of elections, which are 
the fountains of public authority. We 
charge that the present administration and 
the Democratic majority in Congress owe 
their existence to the suppression of the 
ballot by a criminal nullification of the con- 
stitution and laws of the United States. 

We are uncompromisingly in favor of the 
American system of protection; we protest 
against its destruction as proposed by the 




JOHN P. ST. JOHN, OF KANSAS. 



The Platforms. 



177 



President and hi6 party. They serve the 
interests of Europe ; we will support the in- 
terests of America. We accept the issue 
and confidently appeal to the people for 
their judgment The protective system 
must be maintained. Its abandonment has 
always been followed by general disaster to 
all interests, except those of the usurer and 
the sheriff. We denounce the Mills bill as 
destructive to the general business, the la- 
bor and the farming interests of the coun- 
try, and we heartily endorse the consistent 
and patriotic action of the Republican rep- 
resentatives in Congress in opposing its 
passage. 

We condemn the proposition of the Dem- 
ocratic party to place wool on the free list, 
and we insist that the duties thereon shall 
be adjusted and maintained so as to furnish 
full and adequate protection to that indus- 
try throughout the United States. 

The Republican party would effect all 
needed reduction of the national revenue by 
repealing the taxes upon tobacco which are 
an annoyance and burden to agriculture, 
and the tax upon spirits used in the arts 
and for mechanical purposes, and by such 
revision of the tariff laws as will tend to 
check imports of such articles as are pro- 
duced by our people, the production of 
which gives employment to our labor, and 
release from import duties those articles of 
foreign production (except luxuries; the 
like of which can not be produced at home. 
If there shall still remain a larger revenue 
than is requisite for the wants of the gov- 
ernment, we favor the entire repeal of in- 
ternal taxes rather than the surrender of 
any part of our protective system at the 
joint behest of the whisky trusts and the 
agents of foreign manufacturers. 

We declare our hostility to the introduc- 
tion into this country of foreign contract 
labor and Cbinese labor, alien to our civil- 
ization and constitution, and we demand 
the rigid enforcement of the existing laws 
against it, and favor 6uch immediate legis- 
lation as will exclude such labor from our 
shores. 

We declare^our opposition to all combi- 
nations of capital organized in trusts or 
otherwise to control arbitrarily the condi- 

xii 



tion of trade among our citizens, and we 
recommend to Congress and the State Leg- 
islatures of their respective jurisdictions 
such legislation as will prevent the execu- 
tion of all schemes to oppress the people by 
undue charges on their supplies, or by un- 
just rates for the transportation of their 
.products to market. We approve the legis- 
lation by Congress to prevent any unjust 
burdens and unfair discriminations between 
the States. 

We re-affirm the policy of appropriating 
the public lands of the United States to be 
homesteads for American citizens and set- 
tlers—not aliens— which the Republican 
party established in 1862 against the per- 
sistent opposition of the Democrats in Con- 
gress, and which has brought our great 
Western domain into such magnificent de- 
velopment. The restoration of such un- 
earned railroad land grants to the public 
domain for the use of settlers, which was 
begun under the administration of Presi- 
dent Arthur, should be continued. We de- 
ny that the Democratic party has ever re- 
stored one acre to the people, but declare 
that by the joint action of Republicans and 
Democrats in Congress about 50,000,000 of 
acres of unearned lands originally granted 
for the construction of railroads have been 
restored to the public domain, in pursuance 
of the conditions inserted by the Republican 
party in the original grants. We charge 
the Democratic administration with failure 
to execute the laws securing to settlers 
titles to their homesteads, and with using 
appropriations for that purpose to harass 
innocent settlers with spies and prosecu- 
tions under the false pretense of exposing 
frauds and vindicating laws. 

The government by Congress of the Ter- 
ritories is based upon necessity, only to the 
end that they may become States in the 
Union. Therefore, whenever the conditions 
of population, material resources, public 
intelligence and morality are such as to in- 
sure a stable local government therein, the 
people of such Territories should be per- 
mitted as a right inherent in them to form 
for themselves constitutions and State gov- 
ernments and be admitted into the Union. 
Pending the preparation for Statehood, all 



178 



Solid Shot. 



officers thereof should be selected from the 
bona fide residents and citizens of the Ter- 
ritory wherein they are to serve. South 
Dakota should of right be immediately ad- 
mitted as a State in the Union, under the 
constitution framed and adopted by her 
people, and we heartily endorse the act of 
the Republican Senate in twice passing 
bills for her admission. The refusal of the 
Democratic House of Representatives, for 
partisan purposes, to favorably consider 
these bills, is a willful violation of the 
sacred American principle of local self- 
government, and merits the condemnation 
of all just men. The pending bills in the 
Senate to enable the people of Washington, 
North Dakota and Montana Territories to 
form constitutions and establish State gov- 
ernments should be passed without unnec- 
essary delay. The Republican party pledges 
itself to do all in its power to facilitate the 
admission of the Territories of New Mexi- 
co, Wyoming, Idaho and Arizona to the en- 
joyment of self-government as States, such 
of them as are now qualified as soon as 
possible, and the others as soon as they 
may become so. 

The political power of the Mormon Church 
in the Territories, as exercised in the past, 
is a menace to free institutions, a danger 
no longer to be suffered. Therefore we 
pledge the Republican party to appropriate 
legislation asserting the sovereignty of the 
Nation in all Territories where the same is 
questioned, and in furtherance of that end 
to place upon the statute books legislation 
stringent enough to divorce the political 
from the ecclesiastical power, and thus 
stamp out the attendant wickedness of po- 
lygamy. 

The Republican party is in favor of the 
use of both gold and silver as money, and 
condemns the policy of the Democratic ad- 
ministration in its efforts to demonetize 
silver. 

We demand the reduction of letter postage 
to one cent per ounce. 

In a republic like ours, where the citizen 
is the sovereign and the official the servant, 
where no power is exercised except by the 
will of the people, it is important that the 
sovereign — the people — should possess in- 



telligence. The free school is the promoter 
of that intelligence which is to preserve us 
as a free nation; therefore the State, or 
Nation, or both combined, should support 
free institutions of learning sufficient to 
afford to every child growing in the land 
the opportunity of a good common-school 
education. 

We earnestly recommend that prompt 
action be taken by Congress on the enact- 
ment of such legislation as will best secure 
the rehabilitation of our American mer- 
chant marine, and we protest against the 
passage by Congress of a free-ship bill, as 
calculated to work injustice to labor by les- 
sening the wages of those engaged in pre- 
paring materials, as well as those directly 
employed in our ship-yards. We demand 
appropriation for the early rebuilding of 
our navy; for the construction of coast 
fortifications and modern ordinances and 
other approved modern means of defense 
for the protection of defenseless harbors 
and cities ; for the payment of just pensions 
to our soldiers ; for necessary works of na- 
tional importance in the improvement of 
harbors and the channels of the internal, 
coastwise and foreign commerce; for the 
encouragement of the shipping interests of 
the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific States, as 
well as for the payment of the maturing 
public debt. This policy will give employ- 
ment to our labor, activity to our various 
industries, increase the security of our 
country, promote trade, open new and di- 
rect markets for our produce and cheapen 
the cost of transportation. We affirm this 
to be far better for our country than the 
Democratic policy of loaning the govern- 
ment's money, without interest, to "pet 
banks." 

The conduct of affairs by the present ad- 
ministration has been distinguished by its 
inefficiency and cowardice. Having with- 
drawn from the Senate all pending treaties 
effected by Republican administrations for 
the removal of foreign burdens and restric- 
tions upon our commerce, and for its ex- 
tension into better markets, it has neither 
effected nor proposed any others in their 
stead. Professing adherence to the Monroe 
doctrine, it has seen, with idle complacen- 



The Platforms. 



179 



cy, the extension of foreign influence in 
Central America and of foreign trade every- 
where among our neighbors. It has refused 
to charter, sanction or encourage any 
American organization for constructing the 
Nicaragua Canal, a work of vital import- 
ance to the maintenance of the Monroe doc- 
trine and of our national influence in Cen- 
tral and South America and necessary 
for the development of trade with our Pa- 
cific territory, with South America and with 
the islands and farther coasts of the Pacific 
Ocean. 

We arraign the present Democratic ad- 
ministration for its weak and unpatriotic 
treatment of the fisheries question, and its 
pusillanimous surrender of the essential 
privileges to which our fishing vessels are 
entitled in Canadian ports under the treaty 
of 1818, the reciprocal maritime legislation 
of 1830 and the comity of nations, and which 
Canadian fishing vessels receive in the ports 
of the United States. We condemn the pol- 
icy of the present administration and the 
Dsmocratic majority in Congress toward 
our fisheries as unfriendly and conspicu- 
ously unpatriotic, and as tending to destroy 
a valuable national industry and an indis- 
pensable source of defense against a foreign 
enemy. 

The name American applies alike to all 
citizens of the republic, and imposes upon 
all alike the same obligation of obedience 
to the laws. At the same time that citizen- 
ship is and must be the panoply and safe- 
guard of him who wears it, and protect 
bim, whether high or low, rich or poor, in 
all his civil rights, it should and must 
afford him protection at home and follow 
and protect him abroad, in whatever land 
he may be on a lawful errand. 

The men who abandoned the Republican 
party in 1884 and coDtinue to adhere to the 
Democratic party have deserted not only 
the cause of honest government, of sound 
finance, of freedom, of purity of the ballot, 
but especially have deserted the cause of 



reform in the Civil Service. We will not 
fail to keep our pledges because they have 
broken theirs, or because their candidate 
has broken his. We therefore repeat our 
declaration of 1884, to wit: "The reform 
of the Civil Service auspiciously begun un- 
der the Republican administration should 
be completed by the further extension of 
the reform systems already established by 
law to all the grades of service to which it 
is applicable. The spirit and purpose of 
the reform should be observed in all execu- 
tive appointments, and all laws at variance 
with the object of existing reform legisla« 
tion should be repealed, to the end that the 
dangers to free institutions which lurk in 
the power of official patronage may be 
wisely and effectively avoided." 

The gratitude of the Nation to the defend- 
ers of the Union can not be measured by 
laws. The legislation of Congress should 
conform to the pledges made by a loyal 
people, and be so enlarged and extended as 
to provide against the possibility that any 
man who wore the Federal uniform shall 
become an inmate of an almshouse or de- 
pendent upon private charity. In the pres- 
ence of an overflowing treasury it would be 
a public scandal to do less for those whose 
valorous service preserved the government. 
We denounce the hostile spirit shown by 
President Cleveland in his numerous vetoes 
of measures for pension relief, and the 
action of the Democratic Representatives in 
refusing even the consideration of general 
pension legislation. 

In support of the principles herewith 
enumerated we invite the co-operation of 
patriotic men of all parties, and especially 
of all workingmen, whose prosperity is 
seriously threatened by the free trade policy 
of the present administration. 

The first concern of all good government 
is the virtue and sobriety of the people, and 
the purity of the home. The Republican 
party cordially sympathizes with all wise 
and well-directed efforts for the promotion 
of temperance and morality. 



180 



Solid Shot. 



REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS, 



It is claimed by a good many persons that all temperance men are 
Kepublicans, and that all temperance legislation is Republican. The fol- 
lowing table gives the population and number of liquor dealers in the 
States uniformly Republican and uniformly Democratic. The States of 
New York, New Jersey, Indiana and Connecticut are omitted,, as they 
are part ot the time Republican and part of the time Democratic. Rhode 
Island is omitted, because the Internal Revenue Statistics of Rhode Island 
are included with Connecticut. 



REPUBLICAN. 



California and Nevada 

Colorado and Wyoming. . 

Illinois 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Nebraska and Dakota 

Maine, Vermont and New 
Hampshire 

Ohio 

Oregon, Alaska and Wash- 
ington 

Pennsylvania 

Wisconsin 



Totals 



1 165 000 

410 000 

3 437 810 

1 824 860 

1 600 000 

2 005 703 

2 078 658 
1 400 000 
1 600 000 

1 374 139 

3 700 000 

434 469 
5 074 527 
1 750 000 



12 7 
3 0: 

12 563 
3 341 
1 435 
7 798 
6 462 
3 576 



2 505 

14 213 

2 034 

15 898 
235 



27 855 166 94 984 Totals 



DEMOCRATIC. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Florida 

Georgia 

Kentucky 

Louisiana and Mississippi 
Maryland, Delaware, D. of 

C, and 2 Counties of 

Virginia 

Missouri 

North Carolina 

South Carolina — 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Virginia 

West Virginia 



Population. 


1 500 000 


1 200 000 


375 000 


2 041 669 


1 940 585 


2 400 000 


1 486 931 


3 125 000 


2 000 000 


1 100 000 


1 700 000 


2 705 697 


1 600 000 


786 500 


23 961 382 



941 

76T 

354 

1 467 

3 889 

5 238 



6 195 

1 349 

877 

1 693 
3 518 

2 408 
776 



36 170 



It will be seen there are 94,984 liquor dealers in the States under Re- 
publican control, against 36,170 in States under Democratic control, — that 
in the Democratic States there is one saloon to every 662 inhabitants, and 
in the Republican States one saloon to every 293 inhabitants. 

Which does not prove that the Democratic party is a temperance party, 
but it does prove that it is absurd for any man to claim that the Republi- 
can party is a temperance party. 



THE SUPREME COURT, 



ITS DECLARATIONS ON THE RIGHT OF A STATE, UNDER 
THE CONSTITUTION AS IT IS, TO PRO- 
HIBIT THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 



The right to prohibit the liquor 
traffic or any other business that is 
detrimental to the health, good mor- 
als, or order of the community, in- 
heres in the State and is not depen- 
dent upon any power conferred on 
the legislature by the constitution. 
In proof of which we give the fol- 
lowing extracts from the "Decis- 
ions of the United States Supreme 
Court on the Kansas Appeals," de- 
livered by Justice Harlan, Decem- 
ber 5th, 1887. He quotes from Chief 
Justice Taney (Howe 504) as fol- 
lows: 

If any State deems the retail and internal 
traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citi- 
zens, and calculated to produce idleness, 
vice, or debauchery, I see nothing in the 
Constitution of the United States to pre- 
vent it from regulating and restraining the 
traffic, or from prohibiting it altogether, if 
it thinks proper. 

He quotes from Justice Grier, on 
the same case, as follows : 

The true question presented by these 
cases, and one which I am not disposed to 
evade, is whether the States have a right to 
prohibit the sale and consumption of an 
article of commerce which they believe to 
be pernicious in its effects, and the cause 
of disease, pauperism and crime. * * * 
Without attempting to define what are the 



peculiar subjects or limits of this power, it 
may safely be affirmed, that every law for 
the restraint or punishment of crime, for 
the preservation of the public peace, health 
and morals, must come within this cate- 
gory. * * * It is not necessary, 
for the sake of justifying the State legisla- 
tion now under consideration, to array the 
appalling statistics of misery, pauperism, 
and crime which have their origin in the 
use or abuse of ardent spirits. The police 
power, which is exclusively in the States, 
is alone competent to the correction of 
these great evils, and all measures of re- 
straint or prohibition necessary to effect 
the purpose are within the scope of that 
authority. 

Arguing from these, Justice Har- 
lan 8 ays: 

If, therefore, a State deems the absolute 
prohibition of the manufacture and sale, 
within her limits, of intoxicating liquors 
for other than medical, scientific, and man- 
ufacturing purposes, to be necessary to the 
peace and security of society, the courts 
cannot, without usurping legislative func- . 
tions, override the will of the people as 
thus expressed by their chosen representa- 
tives. They have nothing to do with the 
mere policy of legislation. Indeed, it is a 
fundamental principle in our institutions, 
indispensable to the preservation of public 
liberty, that one of the separate depart- 
ments of government shall not usurp pow- 
ers committed by the Constitution to 



182 



Solid Shot 



another department. And eo, if, in the 
judgment of the legislature, the manufac- 
ture of intoxicating liquors for the maker's 
own use as a beverage, would tend to 
cripple, if it did not defeat the efforts to 
guard the community against the evils 
attending the excessive use of such liquors, 
it is not for the courts, upon their views as 
to what is best and safest for the commun- 
ity, to disregard the legislative determina- 
tion of that question. So far from such a 
regulation having no relation to the general 
end sought to be accomplished, the entire 
scheme of prohibition, as embodied in the 
Constitution and laws of Kansas, might 
fail, if the right of each citizen to manu- 
facture intoxicating liquors for his own 
use as a beverage were recognized. Such 
a right does not inhere in citizenship. Nor 
can it be said that government interferes 
with or impairs any one's constitutional 
rights of liber tv or of property when it 
determines that the manufacture and sale 
of intoxicating drinks, for general or indi- 
vidual use, as a beverage are, or may 
become, hurtful to society, and constitute, 
therefore, a business in which no one may 
lawfully engage. 

And the court sums up its decis- 
ion on the question of compensation, 
on the assumption that the right to 
prohibit is always conceded : 

We are unable to perceive anything in 
these regulations inconsistent with the 
constitutional guarantees of liberty and 
property. The State having authority to 
prohibit the manufacture and sale of intox- 
icating liquors for other than medical, 
scientific, and mechanical purposes, we do 
not doubt her power to declare that any 
place, kept and maintain* d for the illegal 
manufacture and sale of such liquors, shall 



be deemed a common nuisance, and be 
abated, and, at the same time, to provide 
for the indictment and trial of the offender. 
One is a proceeding against the property 
used for the forbidden purposes, while the 
other i6 for the punishment of the offender. 

It is, therefore, decided by the 
highest legal authority in the 
United States that the State has 
the right and power to prohibit the 
liquor traffic, and that no amend- 
ment to the constitution is needed 
to enable it so to do. Furthermore, 
it would appear from the same de- 
cision that the constitution of a 
State could not restrain the legisla- 
ture from prohibiting the liquor 
traffic if in the judgment of that 
legislature such prohibition was 
necessary in order to protect the 
health or public morals. The Court 
quotes from the case of Stone vs. 
Mississippi (101 U. S. 816) as follows: 

No legislatuie can bargain away the 
public health or the public morals. The 
people themselves cannot do it, much less 
their seryants. * * * Government 
is organized with a view to their preserva- 
tion, and cannot divest itself of the power 
to provide for them. 

So it appears that all non-partisan 
schemes to secure prohibition by 
amending the constitution are sim- 
ply pleadings in delay. No amend- 
ment to the constitution is needed. 
The plain, practical, straight-for- 
ward way to get rid of the liquor 
traffic is to elect legislatures that 
will prohibit it. 



THE OLD PARTIES, 



THEIR POSITION ON THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC AS STATED 
BY THEMSELVES. 



THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 



We are opposed to all sumptuary legisla- 
tion.— Iowa State Platform, 1887. 

Prohibition and Democracy cannot live 
in the same latitude together.— St. Joseph 
[Mo.) Gazette. 

We oppose sumptuary laws which vex 
the citizen and interfere with individual 
liberty.— National Platform of 188/,, and 
re-affirmed by Platform of 1888. 

The Democratic party is not a prohibi- 
tion party, and has never professed to be. 
It has not even professed to be friendly to 
prohibition ideas.— Cincinnati Enquirer. 

The Democratic party of Indiana is now, 
as it has always been, opposed in principle 
to all sumptuary laws and prohibitory leg- 
islation.— Indiana State Platform, 1886. 

We oppose all sumptuary laws needlessly 
interfering with the personal liberties and 
reasonable habits and customs of any por- 
tion of our citizens.— New York State Plat- 
form, 1887. 

If the fight [against prohibition] is not 
made distinctly and emphatically the fight 
of the historic Democracy, on the lines of 
its historic principles, it is a losing fight 
from the beginning.— Si. Louis Repub- 
lican. 

Democrats are opposed to prohibition in 
the legislature and out of the legislature. 
Moreover, Democrats are in principle 
agreed that prohibition is a subject on 
which the people have no right to vote. — 
Brooklyn Eagle. 



Resolved, That the party is opposed to 
all class and sumptuary legislation. — Min~ 
nesota State Platform, 1886. 

There is no pleasanter sight than to see 
hundreds of Germans, with their wives and 
children, in a beer-garden, listening to the 
music and enjoying themselves as good, 
law-abiding citizens. —President Cleveland. 

There need be no mistake in Democratic 
doctrine. Democrats do not believe in 
what may be called moral legislation. * 
* * The Democratic party absolutely 
and imperatively rejects the whole scheme 
of forwarding temperance by law. — New 
York Star. 

There are many people In Ohio who do 
not think it necessary to wipe out the great 
brewing and distilling interests simply be- 
cause the Prohibition people demand it. 
The way to block the game is to vote the 
Democratic ticket.— Cincinnati Enquirer. > 

But we do desire to impress our friends 
with the fact that their only salvation from 
absolute prohibition is by voting solid, from 
constable to president, for the Democratic 
candidates.— South-West, Democratic Liq- 
uor Organ. 

Laws unnecessarily interfering with the 
habits and customs of any people, which 
are not offensive to the morals and senti- 
ments of the civilized world, and which 
are consistent with good citizenship and 
the public welfare, are unwise and vexa- 
tious.— President Grover Cleveland, ac- 
cepting the Democratic nomination. 



184 



Solid Shot. 



The Democratic party of the State of 
Texas deprecates and will oppose any 
movement looking to the reopening of 
further agitation of the question of State 
prohibition.— Texas State Democratic Plat- 
form, 1888. 

Let it be known once and for all that Demo- 
crats will kill off all Democrats who are 
nominated simply because they meet the 
requirements of this arch-enemy of the 
Democratic party [Prohibition].— Atchison 
County, Mo., Mail 

The prohibition by constitution or gener- 
al law of the manufacture or sale of vinous, 
malt or spirituous liquors would be in 
violation of individual and personal rights, 
and contrary to the fundamental principles 
of free government. — Illinois Democratic 
State Platform, 1886, 

It would be as reasonable to consider 
Prohibition in a Democratic legislature 
after a Democratic triumph as it would be 
to consider the convict lease question by a 
Democratic legislature after the indorse- 
ment by the people of the Democratic plat- 
form denouncing penitentiary let ses. — 
Galveston News. 

That in view of the brilliant future that 
awaits California, in the development of its 
wine interests, we must heartily favor the 



bills now pending in Congress for the 
release from taxation of spirits used in the 
fortification of sweet wines, and the pro- 
tection of our wine industries from the 
injurious effects of fraud and the unre- 
stricted sale of spurious wines. And we 
also favor legislation providing for the 
protection of the wine industry. That we 
reaffirm the principles contained in the 
National Democratic Platforms, declaring 
that the Democratic party is unalterably 
opposed to all sumotuary legislation. — Cal- 
ifornia Democratic Platform, 1888, 

I have come to the conclusion that .the 
law should be modified so as to permit the 
selling of beer and light wines on Sunday 
afternoons in such places as shall be spec- 
ially licensed for that purpose. In view of 
the fact that a very large portion of our 
population come from countries in which 
the Sabbath afternoon is used for recreation 
as well as rest, and that the privilege of 
taking light refreshments in social gather- 
ings is rarely abused by them, it would, in 
my judgment, contribute very much to the 
ease with which we could prevent violations 
of the law if this concession to the habits 
and wishes of a portion of our people could 
be made. As a rule sumptuary legislation 
is not popular.— Abram S. Hewitt, Demo- 
cratic Mayor of N. Y. City, 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 



Prohibition must be prohibited in the 
Republican party.— Chi cago Tribune. 

Personal liberty is safer under Republi- 
cans than it will be under Democrats. — 
Chicago Tribune. 

Hundreds of saloons in Ohio are substan- 
tially Republican club-houses.— Cincinnati 
Commercial- Gazette. 

To say that prohibition is a Republican 
measure is too absurd to be believed, except 
by such as know nothinar whatever of the 
facts.— Senator Sutton, of Iowa. 

The Republican party of Iowa is not only 
not of the Prohibition party, it is not a 
party of prohibition, and it will not be. 
On that peg you may hang your hat. — 
Davenport Gazette. 



The Republicans in 1888 are going to fight 
prohibition with all the weapons known to 
civilized warfare.— Chicago Tribune. 

The brewers' interests in Ohio are in no 
more danger from the Republican than 
from the Democratic administration.— Chi- 
cago Tribune. 

The Republican party is not a temperance 
party and does not believe in temperance 
legislation.— James D Warren, Chairman 
Blaine Pep. Committee, N. Y. 

The sooner the Prohibition friends become 
convinced that the Republican party as a 
political organization does not favor the 
enactment of prohibition laws, the sooner 
they will have arrived at the exact truth.— 
Albany 1 



The Old Parties. 



185 



It is no use to conceal the fact that the 
large majority of beer saloon-keepers are 
Republicans, and that their patrons are 
largely Republicans.— Chicago Tribune. 

The Republican party is not in favor of 
prohibition and cannot be placed in that 
position without palpable insincerity or 
duplicity on the part of the convention.— 
Indianapolis Journal. 

The Republican party nationally is not a 
prohibition party and it is not likely to be 
so transformed at any future date. It does 
not recognize the liqaor question as an 
issue properly national at all.— St. Paul 
Pioneer Press. 

It is vain to say that the Republican party 
must and will become a prohibition party. 
It must and shall do no such thing. Those 
who are in it simply to make it so might as 
well go at once, for they will not succeed. — 
■Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette. 

There is nothing in the amendment of Mr. 
Boutelle which can prevent German Repub- 
licans from voting the Republican National 
ticket. It is simply a declaration in favor 
of temperance and morality, in which every 
honest man believes. — Chicago Tribune. 

There is but one class in America who can 
take any exception to this declaration [The 
Boutelle Resolution in the Republican 
National Platform of 1888] and that class is 
the party of anarchy. * * * This 
is as far from an endorsement of pro- 
hibitory legislation as temperance is from 
total abstinence, The Prohibiton party has 
declared that National and State legisla- 
tures ought to make the manufacture and 
sale of malt and vinous and spirituous 
liquors a criminal offence ; but who except 
a fanatic could distort the declaration of 
the Republican platform into an equivalent 
of the Prohibition party's sweeping decla- 
ration? * * * Such legislation 
as this, and not prohibitory legislation, is 
within the purview of this plank of the 
platform, and the efforts of Democratic 
journalism or railroad organs to twist the 
plank into a prohibition plank must be 
futile, in view of the common-sense con- 
struction which intelligent people will give 
it.— -San Francisco Chronicle. 



We had nothing to gain by a Democratic 
victory, just as we have nothing to lose by 
a Republican triumph.— Bonforf* Wine 
and Spirit Circular, Nov. 10, 1888. 

A story has been started in Chicago to 
the effect that General Harrison is in favor 
of prohibition. This is a lie. General Har- 
rison is a Republican. On the temperance 
question as on all others he stands with the 
Republican party. General Harrison is too 
good a Republican to be a Prohibitionist. — 
Indianapolis Journal. 

A desperate effort is being made by the 
Enquire Gang to shake the Republican 
German wards. 

The Gangsters are yelling now that For- 
aker is a prohibitionist. Is it not rather 
too late to do this after parading the twin 
frauds, Leonard and St. John, at Music Hall 
as assistant Democrats ? 

Judge Forakex stands firmly on the 
Republican platform, and that is for the 
regulation of the liquor traffic by taxation, 
according to the Constitution. He is in 
favor of doing this without delay, with 
moderation and discrimination, and that's 
all the business there is in the liquor and 
temperance questions at present.— Cincin- 
nati Commercial- Gazette. 

Neither the committee on Platform nor 
the convention ought to waste time over the 
temperance question. So far as its general 
relation to the campaign is concerned the 
status of the question is already settled. 
The Prohibitionists have held a National 
convention and nominated candidates for 
President and Vice President, and are fully 
committed to the support of their own 
ticket. There is no probability that any 
appreciable number of them can be drawn 
to the support of Republican candidates 
and it is waste of time to try. In fact, any 
attempt in that direction would be mere 
juggling with words, for the Republican 
party is not in favor of Prohibition and 
cannot be placed in that position without 
palpable Insincerity or duplicity on the part 
of the convention. Of course, however, 
the convention would not attempt anything 
of that kind.— Indianapolis Journal, July 
10, 1883. 



186 



Solid Shot 



There is no reason why any intelligent 
lager beer drinker should not be a Republi- 
can, and there is every reason why a lager 
beer maker should vote the Republican 
ticket.— N. Y. Mail and Express. 

There are about thirty Democratic coun- 
ties in the State (Missouri) where no 
licenses are issued and prohibition is en- 
forced as hard as it can be. This condition 
of things indicates that the personal liberty 
of the Germans is much more seriously 
threatened by Democratic influences in 
Missouri than by Republican influences in 
Illinois.— Chicago Tribune. 

The Republican party proposes to respect 
the rights reserved by the people to them- 
selves as carefully as the powers delegated 
by them to the State and Federal govern- 
ment and disapproves of the resort to 
unconstitutional laws for the purpose of 
removing evils by interfering with rights 
not surrendered by the people to either 
State or National government. — Raster 
Resolution, plank 16, National Platform, 
1873. 

The universal Democratic effort in the 
Western States to identify the Republicans 
with prohibition is a partisan trick. Po- 
litical prohibition originated with the 
Democrats. They passed the Maine law, 
which has always been the mainstay and 
model of prohibition legislation every- 
where. Not long afterwards the Democrats 
of Illinois, then controlling the Legislature, 
passed a similar law. The law was as com- 
prehensive as the most fanatical Prohibi- 
tionist of to-day would demand. It was 



repealed two years later, after its imprac- 
ticability and unjustice had been demon- 
strated, but even then against the protest 
of some of the leading Democrats of the 
State. To this it may be added that every 
measure restricting and regulating the 
liquor traffic in this State has been passed 
by the joint action of the Democrats and 
Republicans, including the Harper law. 

There are other evidences that the Dem- 
ocratic party is identified much more than 
the Republican party with prohibition 
politics. Prohibition laws prevail much 
more widely throughout the Democratic 
South than in the Republican North, In 
Georgia, the banner Democratic State 
where the Republican party has actually 
no existence, 94 out of 137 counties have 
adopted prohibition. The movement is 
spreading rapidly over the South. In the 
recent Maine vote on the adoption of the 
constitutional amendment embodying the 
old Democratic prohibition statutes there 
were as many Democratic votes for it as 
there were Republican votes. When the 
Iowa prohibitory amendment was submit- 
ted it received a heavy Democratic vote 
without which it would not have had a ma- 
jority. In the rural districts everywhere 
there are as many prohibitionists among 
the Republicans, but the former always vote 
their old party ticket in presidential elec- 
tions and let foolish Republicans do the 
side-show business. 

In the face of these facts, it is imperti- 
nent and fraudulent for the Democrats to 
bid for the German vote on the ground that 
Republican success threatens prohibition. 
—Editorial in the Chicago Tribune (Rep.^ 



LIQUOR AND LABOR, 



OPINIONS OF PROMINENT LABOR REFORMERS ON THE 
LIQUOR QUESTION. 



p. m. Arthur's words. 

What is personal liberty ? Is it to allow 
men to deal out poison among our families ? 
I say close up these saloons, and keep them 
closed, not only on Sunday, but every day 
in the year, I have been called a radical, 
but I am glad to be a radical on the side of 
right. If I could I would inaugurate a 
strike which would drive the liquor traffic 
from the face of the earth. Who wants the 
saloon opened In the face of the goo 1 that 
has been accomplished since they have been 
closed, all honor to Judge Hutchins? If 
this outpouring is an indication of what 
you will do at the polls, I think we will 
be triumphant. We must rise above party 
affiliation, and stand shoulder to shoulder 
at the polls. If you are in earnest, the sa- 
loons will remain closed in the city forever. 
Were it possible, I would not only have the 
saloon closed on Sunday, but I would not 
have a freight train moved on our railroads. 
Every friend of the workingman concedes 
that he should have one day of rest in sev- 
en.— P. if. Arthur, Chief of the Brother- 
hood of Locomotive Engineers, in a speech 
at Cleveland, Ohio, March 38th 1886. 

If the liquor traffic was completely sup- 
pressed and the amount annually spent in 
the saloons diverted into legitimate chan- 
nels of trade, it would give such an impetus 
to trade and commerce as was never known 
in the history of civilization.— John F. 
Young, Pa. Delegate to K. of L. General 
Assembly. 

Workingmen must stand up against the 
evil of intemperance. It is a monster de- 



stroyer, not only robbing them of manhood 
and honor, but also of the very means of 
earning an honest living. The manufac- 
ture of intoxicating liquor represents but 
very little productive labor, and its con- 
sumption does nothing but clog the wheels 
of commerce and progress. — John Jarret. 
Late Sec'y Amalgamated Iron and Steel 
Association. 

WHAT POWDERLY SAYS. 

The temperance question is an important 
one, and I sometimes think it is the main 
issue. The large number of applications 
during the past year to grant dispensation 
to allow the initiation of rum-sellers was 
alarming. I have persistently refused 
them, and will eDjoin my successor, if he 
values the future success of the order, to 
shut the doors with triple bars against the 
admission of the liquor-dealer. His path 
and that of the honest, industrious work- 
ingmen lie in opposite directions. The 
rum-seller who seeks admission into a labor 
society does so with the object that he may 
entice its members into his saloon after 
meeting closes. No question of interest to 
labor has ever been satisfactorily settled 
over a bar in a rum-hole. No labor society 
every admitted a rum-seller that did not 
die a drunkard's death. No workingman 
ever drank a glass of rum who did not rob 
his family of the price of it, and in so doing 
committed a double crime, murder and 
theft. He murders the intellect with whicn 
the Maker hath endowed him. He steals 
from his family the means of sustenance 
he has earned for them. Turn to the an. 



188 



Solid Shot. 



nals of every dead labor society and you 
will see whole pages blurred and destroyed 
by the accursed footprints of rum. Scan 
the record of a meeting at which a disturb- 
ance took place, and you will hear echoing 
through the hall the maudlin, fiendish grunt 
of the drunken brute who disturbed the har- 
mony of the meeting. 

In the whole English language I can find 
no word that strikes more terror to my soul 
than the one word, "Rum." It was born 
in hell ere the fiat of "no redemption," 
had gone forth. Its life on earth has been 
one of ruin to the hopes of youth and the 
peace of old age. It has robbed children of 
their delights It has stolen the laugh 
from the lips of innocence, the bloom from 
the cheeks of manhood. It has touched 
the heart of old age like the tip of a pois- 
oned arrow. Its sounds, as it gurgles from 
the neck of a bottle, echoes through many 
a desolate household as the hissing of a 
thousand serpents 

chief Arthur's opinions. 

The representative of The People called 
at the Wyoming hotel last evening and was 
accorded an interview with P. M. Arthur, 
Orand Chief Engineer of the Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Engineers, an organization 
composed of 27,000 locomotive engineers, 
almost ninety per cent, of all the engineers 
of the country. 

Being asked what he, as the head of one 
of the leading labor organizations in the 
country, thought of the saloon, he replied : 

" I consider the saloon the greatest enemy 
of labor everywhere. It is an enemy con- 
sidered from either a financial, moral or 
political standpoint." 

"What, in your opinion is the best method 
of correcting or diminishing the evils re- 
sulting from drink?" 

" There is only one method— abolish the 
saloon. Moral suasion alone will not do. 
There are men who are not strong enough 
to resist temptation, and we that are strong- 
er should save our weaker brethren by 
removing the temptation from their path. 
The saloon is an institution that can be 
removed not only without detriment to the 
laboring men, but the removal of which 
would work to their interests. In dealing 



with this question we must have in view 
the best interests of mankind." 

"What do you think of high license?" 
the reporter asked 

" High license does not remove the evil, 
therefore has no virtue whatever as a tem- 
perance measure. While it may close some 
of the smaller drinking shops, it concen- 
trates the liquor interests and the evil still 
remains. The price of the license has 
. nothing whatever to do with the question ' ' 
"It is argued that the labor market is 
already over crowded, and prohibition 
would throw out of employment those who 
are employed in the liquor and beer busi- 
ness and increase the number of unem- 
ployed!" 

" It is true," replied Chief Arthur, " that 
these liquor sellers will be thrown out of 
employment, but it must be remembered 
that the money now spent at the saloon bars 
would go into the legitimate channels of 
trade and consequently the demand for the 
necessaries of life would mean more labor, 
and employ vastly more men than the num- 
ber thrown out of employment through 
prohibition. All right thinking men will 
admit that pauperism, crime and taxation 
would decrease if the saloons were abol- 
ished; the money spent for liquor would 
go toward building new homes and supply- 
ing that which tends to make home com- 
fortable and beautiful." 

"The liquor traffic is an evil of long 
standing," continued the Chief, " and it is 
an evil that the church alone could remove 
if men would rise above party and cast 
their ballots in the line of their prayers. 
If the members of every Christian church 
in Pennsylvania would vote at the coming 
election for the Amendment, I do not think 
there would be much doubt as to the result. ' ' 

" If you were a resident of this State — ?" 

"If I were a resident of this State I 
would work, talk and vote for the Amend- 
ment. While I am generally opposed to 
strikes, I would inaugurate an everlasting 
strike against the saloon. I advise every 
locomotive engineer and every laboring 
man to cast his ballot on the 18th of June 
for prohibition, and help the State to rid 
itself of the greatest enemy of labor." 

"How many members have you in the 
Brotherhood?" 

" About 27,000 or about 90 per cent, of 
all railroad engineers. Some cannot come 
into our order because of its strict 
rules; while others have been expelled. 
You must remember that no member of the 
Brotherhood can either sell liquor or have 
an interest directly or indirectly in the 
sale." 

Grand Chief Arthur has been at the head 
of the Brotherhood for fifteen years, The 
organization was formed twenty-six years 
ago la 3 t month. A number of visiting 
engineers were in Mr. Arthur's room and 
all were equally emphatic in favor of pro- 
hibition.— The People. 



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190 Solid Shot. 



Index to Contents, 



PAGE. 

Abolition — Prohibition, by Colvin 118 

Abou Ben Adhein 32 

Allah's Noblest Work 18 

Anti-License Constitution of Ohio, debates on 75 

Arthur Advises Reduction of Duties 62 

Arthur on Liquor 187 

Bennett, Christ or Barabbas 83 

Bennett, Tariff and Trusts 50 

Bennett, The Bible and Saloon 20 

Bennett, " To the Law and Testimony " 3 

Bible and Saloon 20 

Blaine, Capital Needs no Protection 56 

Blaine, Wage Inequalities are equalized by Efficiency 61 

Brewers' Congress . # 80 

Brewers' Congress of '82 85 

Burning a Railroad Bridge, St. John T ... 168 

Butterworth, Salvation Under Protection ." 58 

Cannot be Legalized without Sin 165 

Carlisle, His Selection of a Committee on the Liquor Traffic 86 

Chicago Tribune Denounces the Tarifl 64 

Christ or Barabbas 33 

Colvin on Abolition — Prohibition 118 

Constitution of Ohio, Debates on Adoption of 75 

Constitution, Purpose of 14 

Cook, Safe Popular Freedom 4 

Dawes on Trusts 63 

Democratic Platform, 1888 174 

Democratic Position '. 183 

Doggeries, Not Abated by License 108 

Dow Law, Means Saloon Arrogance 16 

Drinking, Not Reduced by License 105-107 

Finch on Regulation 149 

Garfield, for Protection that Leads to Free Trade 62 

Grant on Revenue Reform 60 



Index to Contents. 191 

PAGE. 

Grant, Tariff Paid by Consumer 01 

Greeley, Who Defeated Him 60 

Guiteau, Drinking when He Shot Garfield 92 

Hall, Favors Free Salt 61 

Harrison, Tarift is for Revenue 60 

High License always Urged as a Temperance Measure 96 

High License, by R. S. Thompson 95 

High License Favored by Distillers 88 

Ingalls, Denounces Protection 6: 

Jefferson, on Limitation of Legislation 9 

Killing a Snake .132 

Labor and Prohibition 58 

Leonard on Cannot be Legalized without Sin 165 

License Endorsed by Liquor Dealers' Association 98 

License Endorsed by Liquor Papers 98-108 

License Expensive 113-116 

License not Self-enforcing : Ill 

Lincoln at Chicago 126 

Liquor and Labor 187 

Liquor Dealers in Democratic States 180 

Liquor Dealers in Republican States 180 

Logan, the High Tariff does not Protect Labor 62 

McKinley, Protection Cheapens Products 56 

Miller, Calls the Tarifl' Robbery 63 

Ohio Constitution, Debates and Adoption of 75 

Parlin, Condition of Factory Operatives 59 

Powderly on the Liquor Traffic 187 

Prohibition Platform, 1888 171 

Prohibition Vote for Twenty Years 189 

Raster's Letter 85 

Raster Resolution 81 

Regulation a Failure, Finch 149 

Repeal of Sunday Clause in Dow Law 42 

Republicans and Democrats 180 

Republican Platform, 1888 176 

Republican Position 184 

Rum Power, by Helwig 69 

Saloons in Democratic States 180 

Saloons in Republican States 180 



192 Solid Shot. 

PAGE. 

Salt, Hall said should be Free 61 

Salt, Tariff on Condemned by Indianapolis Journal 61 

Sheep, Extravagant Statements Concerning 66 

Sherman Declares Tax a License 22 

Sherman Denounces Excessive Protection 62 

Sherman on Temperance Parties 83 

Sherman says Trusts are Due to Tariff 63 

St. John's Calf Story 168 

Sunday Clause of Dow Law , 42 

Supreme Court Decisions 181 

Tariff and Trusts 50 

Tariff, Denounced by Chicago Tribune 64 

Tariff, to Down Prohibition 65 

Temperance Parties Condemned by Sherman 83 

Texas Liquor Dealers' Confidential Circular 96 

The Old Parties' Position 183 

Thompson, Speech on High License 95 

To the Law and Testimony 3 

Trusts, Chicago Tribune says Due to Tariff 64 

Trusts, Sherman says Produced by Tariff 63 

Union Labor Platform, 1888 173 

Workingmen between Two Millstones 93 

Young on Liquor 187 



